Description:
We've noticed that the default cache: '' option throws an error since v3.7.0

Post job cleanup.
Error: Cache folder paths are not retrieved for npm with cache-dependency-path = 

It's documented in README.md Usage

# Used to specify a package manager for caching in the default directory. Supported values: npm, yarn, pnpm.
# Package manager should be pre-installed
# Default: ''
cache: ''

Hope this report helps fix the issue for others. Thanks 😊

Action version:
v3.7.0

Platform:

• Ubuntu
• macOS
• Windows

Runner type:

• Hosted
• Self-hosted

Tools version:
Node.js v18.16.1 with default npm 9.5.1

Repro steps:
Add a GitHub Action workflow step with the default cache: '' option

Here we toggle inputs.use-cache to skip cache restoration of /home/runner/.npm when node_modules is already cached. This speeds up our GitHub Actions workflow runs on Windows

runs:
  using: composite

  steps:
    - name: Setup Node.js
      uses: actions/setup-node@v3
      id: setup-node

      with:
        cache: ${{ inputs.use-cache != 'false' && 'npm' || '' }}
        node-version-file: .nvmrc

See the full action.yml for more information

Here's our related PR to pin to version v3.6.0 as a fix:

• [support/4.x] Pin GitHub actions/setup-node to v3.6.0 alphagov/govuk-frontend#3909

Expected behavior:
The default cache: '' option to continue working

Actual behavior:
An error is thrown:

Post job cleanup.
Error: Cache folder paths are not retrieved for npm with cache-dependency-path = 

See examples of the error output:

• https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-frontend/actions/runs/5474554095/jobs/9969468646
• https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-frontend/actions/runs/5474554095/jobs/9971533338 (+ debug logs)