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

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.json anymore. I tried clearing my npm cache and my nvm cache, but nothing seems to be working. I tried it on several versions of Node.js (6.10.3 Node.js - 3.10.10 npm is what I would like it to work on), and it doesn't work on any.

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

In npm 6.x and 7.x you can use

npm i --package-lock-only

According to https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/install.html

The --package-lock-only argument will only update the package-lock.json, instead of checking node_modules and downloading dependencies.

By default, package-lock.json is updated whenever you run npm install. However, this can be disabled globally by setting package-lock=false in ~/.npmrc.

When the global package-lock=false setting is active, you can still force a project’s package-lock.json file to be updated by running:

npm install --package-lock

This command is the only surefire way of forcing a package-lock.json update.

This is answered in the comments; package-lock.json is a feature in npm v5 and higher. npm shrinkwrap is how you create a lockfile in all versions of npm.

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.