Is there a way to force npm to generate package-lock.json?

Question

I deleted it by accident and have made many changes to package.json since. An npm install or npm update do not generate package-lock

Answer 1

As several answer explained the you should run:

npm i

BUT if it does not solve...

Check the version of your npm executable. (For me it was 3.x.x which doesn't uses the package-lock.json (at all))

npm -v

It should be at least 5.x.x (which introduced the package-lock.json file.)

To update npm on Linux, follow these instructions.

For more details about package files, please read this medium story.