No, this is just wrong. It might indeed use package-lock.json if it matches your node_modules (so that running `npm install` multiple times won't download new versions). But if you're cloning a repo off of GitHub and running npm install for the first time (which a CI setup might do), it will take the latest deps from package.json and update the package-lock.json - at least this is what I've found many responses online claim. The docs for `npm ci` also suggest that it behaves differently from `npm install` in this exact respect:

> In short, the main differences between using npm install and npm ci are:

> The project must have an existing package-lock.json or npm-shrinkwrap.json.

> If dependencies in the package lock do not match those in package.json, npm ci will exit with an error, instead of updating the package lock.

Well but the docs you cited don't match what you stated. You can delete node_modules and reinstall, it will never update the package-lock.json, you will always end up with the exact same versions as before. The package-lock updating happens when you change version numbers in the package.json file, but that is very much expected! So no, running npm install will not pull in new versions randomly.