How to generate a package-lock.json file [4 ways]

# Table of Contents

1. How to generate a package-lock.json file without running npm install
2. Generating a new package-lock.json file by running npm install
3. Using the --package-lock option to generate a package-lock.json file
4. Make sure you haven't added your package-lock.json file to .gitignore
5. Generating an npm-shrinkwrap.json file

# How to generate a package-lock.json file without running npm install

Use the npm install --package-lock-only command to generate a package-lock.json file without running npm install.

The --package-lock-only option only updates the package-lock.json file instead of checking your node_modules folder and downloading dependencies.

Open your terminal in your project's root directory (where your package.json file is) and issue the following command.

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npm install --package-lock-only

When the --package-lock-only argument is set, a package-lock.json file is generated if it doesn't already exist.

If the file exists, it is updated.

Note that the command doesn't check your node_modules folder and doesn't download dependencies.

If you need to generate a package.json file, issue the npm init -y command.

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npm init -y

The command will generate a new package.json file if it doesn't already exist.

If the file exists, its contents are printed to the terminal.

# Generating a new package-lock.json file by running npm install

You can also run the npm install command to automatically generate a new package-lock.json file.

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npm install

The package-lock.json file is automatically generated for all operations that modify your node_modules directory or your package.json file.

The npm update command can also be used to generate or update package-lock.json.

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npm update

# Using the --package-lock option to generate a package-lock.json file

If you aren't able to generate a package-lock.json file, you might have disabled the package-lock configuration in your ~/.npmrc file.

You can force generate a package-lock.json file by setting the --package-lock argument when issuing npm install.

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npm install --package-lock

The command will force generate a package-lock.json file even if the package-lock configuration key is set to false.

When the package-lock key is set to false, then the package-lock.json file is ignored when installing modules.

You can view your current value of the package-lock key by issuing the following command.

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npm config get package-lock

If you want to disable the package-lock key, set it to false by issuing the following command.

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# disable generating/updating package-lock.json file
npm config set package-lock false

Conversely, if you want to enable the package-lock key, set it to true.

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# enable generating/updating package-lock.json file
npm config set package-lock true

You might also have the view your global setting of the package-lock key by using the --global argument.

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npm config --global get package-lock

If you need to update the value of the global package-lock key, use either of the following commands.

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# disable generating/updating package-lock.json file
npm config --global set package-lock false


# enable generating/updating package-lock.json file
npm config --global set package-lock true

You can also manually check the values in your NPM configuration files.

You can view where your user NPM config file is located by issuing the following command.

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npm config get userconfig

And you can view where your global NPM config file is located by issuing the following command.

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npm config get globalconfig

# Make sure you haven't added your package-lock.json file to .gitignore

Note that your package-lock.json file should be committed to your remote repository.

If you have the file in your .gitignore file, make sure to remove it.

The package-lock.json file is used to:

• describe your dependencies as a tree, so the same dependencies can be installed by multiple people, on multiple machines.
• enable you to go to previous states of your node_modules directory without having to commit node_modules to git.
• optimize the installation process of modules.

# Generating an npm-shrinkwrap.json file

You might have seen that some repositories use a npm-shrinkwrap.json file instead of package-lock.json.

The files are very similar and have the same format, however, npm-shrinkwrap.json is published to the NPM registry and package-lock.json is not.

The package-lock.json file is ignored if it is found in any other location than the root directory.

The npm-shrinkwrap.json file is most commonly used when deploying a CLI tool or when producing production packages.

If you need to generate an npm-shrinkwrap.json file, issue the following command.

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npm shrinkwrap

If your project has both package-lock.json and npm-shrinkwrap.json, then npm-shrinkwrap.json takes precedence and package-lock.json is ignored.

# Additional Resources

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