The `node-version` input is optional. If not supplied, the node version from PATH will be used. However, it is recommended to always specify Node.js version and don't rely on the system one.
The action will first check the local cache for a semver match. If unable to find a specific version in the cache, the action will attempt to download a version of Node.js. It will pull LTS versions from [node-versions releases](https://github.com/actions/node-versions/releases) and on miss or failure will fall back to the previous behavior of downloading directly from [node dist](https://nodejs.org/dist/).
For information regarding locally cached versions of Node.js on GitHub hosted runners, check out [GitHub Actions Runner Images](https://github.com/actions/runner-images).
The `node-version` input supports the Semantic Versioning Specification, for more detailed examples please refer to the [documentation](https://github.com/npm/node-semver).
**Note:** Like the other values, `*` will get the latest [locally-cached Node.js version](https://github.com/actions/runner-images/blob/main/images/linux/Ubuntu2204-Readme.md#nodejs), or the latest version from [actions/node-versions](https://github.com/actions/node-versions/blob/main/versions-manifest.json), depending on the [`check-latest`](docs/advanced-usage.md#check-latest-version) input.
It's **always** recommended to commit the lockfile of your package manager for security and performance reasons. For more information consult the "Working with lockfiles" section of the [Advanced usage](docs/advanced-usage.md#working-with-lockfiles) guide.
The action has a built-in functionality for caching and restoring dependencies. It uses [actions/cache](https://github.com/actions/cache) under the hood for caching global packages data but requires less configuration settings. Supported package managers are `npm`, `yarn`, `pnpm` (v6.10+). The `cache` input is optional, and caching is turned off by default.
The action defaults to search for the dependency file (`package-lock.json`, `npm-shrinkwrap.json` or `yarn.lock`) in the repository root, and uses its hash as a part of the cache key. Use `cache-dependency-path` for cases when multiple dependency files are used, or they are located in different subdirectories.
See the examples of using cache for `yarn`/`pnpm` and `cache-dependency-path` input in the [Advanced usage](docs/advanced-usage.md#caching-packages-data) guide.
`setup-node` comes pre-installed on the appliance with GHES if Actions is enabled. When dynamically downloading Nodejs distributions, `setup-node` downloads distributions from [`actions/node-versions`](https://github.com/actions/node-versions) on github.com (outside of the appliance). These calls to `actions/node-versions` are made via unauthenticated requests, which are limited to [60 requests per hour per IP](https://docs.github.com/en/rest/overview/resources-in-the-rest-api#rate-limiting). If more requests are made within the time frame, then you will start to see rate-limit errors during downloading that looks like: `##[error]API rate limit exceeded for...`. After that error the action will try to download versions directly from the official site, but it also can have rate limit so it's better to put token.
To get a higher rate limit, you can [generate a personal access token on github.com](https://github.com/settings/tokens/new) and pass it as the `token` input for the action:
```yaml
uses: actions/setup-node@v3
with:
token: ${{ secrets.GH_DOTCOM_TOKEN }}
node-version: 16
```
If the runner is not able to access github.com, any Nodejs versions requested during a workflow run must come from the runner's tool cache. See "[Setting up the tool cache on self-hosted runners without internet access](https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server@3.2/admin/github-actions/managing-access-to-actions-from-githubcom/setting-up-the-tool-cache-on-self-hosted-runners-without-internet-access)" for more information.
