How do I retrieve with.path value in another step?

[lkraav]

I'd like to avoid duplicating long path lists.

But with below, action/cache/save@v4 barfs at me with:

Warning: Input required and not supplied: path
Warning: Cache save failed.

What am I doing wrong?

      - uses: actions/cache/restore@v4
        id: cache-restore
        with:
          key: ${{ runner.os }}-node_modules-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}
          path: |
            node_modules
            apps/*/node_modules
            packages/lib/node_modules
            packages/lib/client/node_modules
            packages/lib/server/node_modules

      - run: npm ci --prefer-offline
        if: steps.cache-restore.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'

      - uses: actions/cache/save@v4
        if: steps.cache-restore.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
        with:
          key: ${{ steps.cache-restore.outputs.cache-primary-key }}
          path: ${{ steps.cache-restore.inputs.path }}

ChatGPT claims

"In GitHub Actions, steps within a job can share data using outputs, but there isn't a direct method to retrieve the value of steps.<step_id>.with.path from one step in another step. The with keyword is used to specify inputs for actions, and these inputs are not automatically made available as outputs that other steps can use."

Hallucination or true?

[lkraav]

Going with jobs.<id>.env seems to do what I want well

...
jobs:
  eslint:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      # Following official recommendation to just cache `~/.npm` is a performance nightmare.
      # It takes `npm ci` 3 min to complete 3000+ packages, 1.5G of data.
      # Restoring compressed ~150MB `node_modules` from cache takes 10 sec.
      #
      # @see https://github.com/npm/cli/issues/2011
      # @see https://github.com/npm/cli/issues/3208
      NODE_MODULES_PATHS: |
        node_modules
        apps/*/node_modules
        packages/lib/node_modules
        packages/lib/client/node_modules
        packages/lib/server/node_modules

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: 16

      # @see https://github.com/actions/setup-node/issues/416
      # @see https://github.com/actions/cache/blob/main/examples.md#node---npm
      # @see https://github.com/actions/cache/tree/main/restore
      - uses: actions/cache/restore@v4
        id: cache-restore
        with:
          key: ${{ runner.os }}-node_modules-test-1-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}
          path: ${{ env.NODE_MODULES_PATHS }}

      - run: npm ci --prefer-offline
        if: steps.cache-restore.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'

      # @see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60491837/saving-cache-on-job-failure-in-github-actions
      # @see https://github.com/actions/cache/issues/92
      # @see https://github.com/actions/cache/tree/main/save
      - uses: actions/cache/save@v4
        if: steps.cache-restore.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
        with:
          key: ${{ steps.cache-restore.outputs.cache-primary-key }}
          path: ${{ env.NODE_MODULES_PATHS }}