How to properly remove my node modules ?

That really depends. Are you using any of the packages installed through node? Like Laravel Elixir/Mix?

Just delete the folder. Leave your package.json alone and you can rebuild your required node modules.

@zachleigh No not anymore. I'm just going to use the public folder in pulling my dependencies. So the regular one. Yeah

If you dont use any node modules, then simply delete the folder.

@jimmck What do you mean by rebuild your required node modules. Is that the npm install command ?

Yes. So if you leave your package.json file as it is, you should (theoretically) be able to rebuild your npm dependencies. I say theoretically because it will only work if you installed your dependencies using the --save flag.

@d3cypher Hey. Yes I treat it same as a composer.json file. As @zachleigh said. --save is for package run depends and --save-dev for development packs. They go in their depends section in package.json. I see many complaints about the storage space footprint of node files. But with the ability to delete and rebuild off the .json files can manage. Took sometime to get comfortable with composer fire dance. Now I am learning the npm/yarn fire dance. I have always been comfortable linking my own code. Like Zach refining the theory.