HardhatError: HH1: You are not inside a Hardhat project

Adding Hardhat version 2.12.2 to an existing project either manually to the package.json or by executing one of the commands:

• npm i hardhat
• npm i --save-dev hardhat
• yarn add hardhat
• yarn add --dev hardhat

Gave the following error:

HardhatError: HH1: You are not inside a Hardhat project.

The error was resolved by adding a file named hardhat.config.js to the project root directory.

This file can also be added by executing npx hardhat and then selecting Create an empty hardhat.config.js.

I think that the error is misleading and it should be something like this:

"HardhatError: HH1: Could not find the file hardhat.config.js. Are you not inside a Hardhat project?"

Or something like:

"HardhatError: HH1: You may not be inside a Hardhat project. Ensure running npx hardhat at this directory?"

(You can find more on the discussion at: https://github.com/NomicFoundation/hardhat/issues/1400. But it is limited to collaborators now.)