I’m working on a JavaScript project and running into some weird dependency issues. I think the problem might be with corrupted or outdated files in my node_modules folder.
I want to do a fresh installation of all my packages. Is there an npm command that can completely wipe out the node_modules directory and all the compiled dependencies inside it? I know about npm rebuild but that just recompiles existing packages. I need something that actually deletes everything first.
What I’m looking for is basically a way to start from scratch with my dependencies without having to manually delete the node_modules folder every time. Does npm have a built-in command for this kind of clean slate installation?
Honestly, just rm -rf node_modules package-lock.json && npm install works every time. It’s manual but you don’t need to remember any special commands. On Windows use rmdir /s node_modules instead. Some people prefer yarn, but if you’re sticking with npm this combo never fails.
There’s actually a cleaner way than manually deleting stuff - I found this after months of the same headache. Just use npm ci instead of npm install. It wipes node_modules automatically before installing and only uses package-lock.json, so you get completely fresh dependencies every time. Your lockfile has to exist and match package.json though. If your lockfile’s corrupted too, then yeah, you’ll have to delete both like the other answer said. But for regular clean installs, npm ci beats the delete-and-reinstall routine - it’s faster and way more reliable. That’s why most CI/CD pipelines use it.
npm doesn’t have a built-in command to nuke node_modules and reinstall everything. I’ve hit this problem tons of times, so here’s what works: delete node_modules manually (or use rimraf on Windows), then delete package-lock.json too - it often caches broken versions. Run npm install after that. Takes 30 seconds but saves hours of debugging weird conflicts. Most people skip the lockfile deletion, but I’ve found it’s essential when packages get corrupted. If you do this often, just make a script for it.
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