All bower installs edit bower.json

[desandro]

You can currently install a package, but not have that change reflected in bower.json.

@sheerun :

I'd make bower.json a requirement in 2.0 and make bower_components totally managed by "bower install"

That is deprecate --save and --save-dev entirely (make them default), and don't allow to "bower update" if no bower.json is present

lot of people have problems when they install something to bower_components but they forgot to update bower.json

I cannot think of one good idea to use bower_components without bower.json

components in bower_components that are not in bower.json can interfere with commands

This is similar to #1040 "--save by default" but goes one step further. This would be a big change, something for v2.0. Let us know your thoughts!

[sindresorhus]

👍

[karin-n]

+1