Angular cli error: the serve command requires to be run in an angular project, but a project definition could not be found

When running the terminal commands ng server or ng serve --live-reload=true , I'm getting this issue.

The serve command requires to be run in an Angular project, but a project definition could not be found.

I also had this issue which i resolved by running the command below

ng update @angular/cli --migrate-only --from=<WhateverVersionYouAreCurrentlyOn>

e.g.

ng update @angular/cli --migrate-only --from=1.7.3

getting ref from here