This is correct up to a point (which is why npm ci exist at all), I agree that in general since you would have to mutate the package.json for that to happen, my

This is correct up to a point (which is why npm ci exist at all), I agree that in general since you would have to mutate the package.json for that to happen, my point is moot (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45022048/why-does-npm-install-rewrite-package-lock-json https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45022048/why-does-npm-in...) but npm install will overwrite the package-lock.json if they do not match.