NPM install only creating a package-lock.json? - npm

Question

I am working on a Microsoft Surface 3 running Windows 10. I use git bash for windows for file system management. I'm running npm version 6.14.4 and node version 12.16.2
I'm currently working on an app for some school work and want to run a lite-server instead of vscode's go live extension.
My understanding is that npm install should be run outside of the application as a best practice, but once it's running, you can go back in your terminal in vscode and use npm run start or npm run dev to get the server up. I learned that the two-step process from an online course where I cloned the instructor's work from his Github. In other words, he may have done some preliminary steps that I'm leaving out unintentionally.
I visited the npm docs and spend about an hour familiarizing myself with the technology. Found a nice, simple set of commands to get moving:
$ npm install lite-server --save-dev
(which I run in the project's root folder from git bash)
$ yarn add lite-server --dev # or yarn
...and add a "script" entry within your project's package.json file:
Inside package.json...
"scripts": {
"dev": "lite-server"
},
With the above script entry, you can then start lite-server via:
$ npm run dev
Problem is, I get loads of errors upon NPM install, no package.json file is generated (only a package-lock.json), and attempting npm run dev brings up multiple errors.
From NPM install, I see the following issues mostly:
I get deprecated warnings, chokidar, fsevents, urix, etc.
npm WARN deprecated chokidar#2.1.8: Chokidar 2 will break on node v14+. Upgrade to chokidar 3 with 15x less dependencies.
npm WARN deprecated fsevents#1.2.12: fsevents 1 will break on node v14+ and could be using insecure binaries. Upgrade to fsevents 2.
npm WARN deprecated urix#0.1.0: Please see https://github.com/lydell/urix#deprecated
I am always getting this package-lock.json notice, not sure what it is:
npm notice created a lockfile as package-lock.json. You should commit this file.
Obviously loads of "skipping optional dependency" warnings:
npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: fsevents#^1.2.7 (node_modules\chokidar\node_modules\fsevents):
I get "no such file or directory" warnings:
npm WARN enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, open 'C:\Users\smansfield\desktop\bootcamp_code_responses\class_content_1\activity_4\package.json'
I get these warnings:
npm WARN activity_4 No description
npm WARN activity_4 No repository field.
npm WARN activity_4 No README data
npm WARN activity_4 No license field.
From npm run dev I'm getting these errors:
npm ERR! code ENOENT
npm ERR! syscall open
npm ERR! path C:\Users\smansfield\Desktop\bootcamp_code_responses\class_content_1\activity_4\package.json
npm ERR! errno -4058
npm ERR! enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, open 'C:\Users\smansfield\Desktop\bootcamp_code_responses\class_content_1\activity_4\package.json'
npm ERR! enoent This is related to npm not being able to find a file.
npm ERR! enoent
npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR! C:\Users\smansfield\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache_logs\2020-04-26T17_59_00_317Z-debug.log
I've searched all manner of blogs for any insight on these items... No one seems to have posted about these exact items:
why NPM install is responding with so many errors, deprecation, etc.
why am I only getting package-lock.json upon install?
why am I always getting these errors when I try to spin up the lite-server, especially these ENOENT codes and path errors?
Thank you for any insight you can provide me on this. I'll most certainly pay it forward.
Sam

Answer 1

Try run npm init first. It will initialize your project with npm.