diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 090b448c2..29bcef977 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -10,6 +10,12 @@
 - [Rust](https://github.com/moonrepo/rust-plugin/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md)
 - [TOML schema](https://github.com/moonrepo/schema-plugin/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md)
 
+## Unreleased
+
+#### 🐞 Fixes
+
+- Fixed an issue where version detection would read files found in `node_modules` (which you usually don't want).
+
 ## 0.22.1
 
 #### 🐞 Fixes
diff --git a/crates/core/src/tool.rs b/crates/core/src/tool.rs
index cbbacf52c..6495493dd 100644
--- a/crates/core/src/tool.rs
+++ b/crates/core/src/tool.rs
@@ -546,6 +546,11 @@ impl Tool {
             return Ok(None);
         }
 
+        // TODO move this into plugins
+        if current_dir.to_string_lossy().contains("node_modules") {
+            return Ok(None);
+        }
+
         let has_parser = self.plugin.has_func("parse_version_file");
         let result: DetectVersionOutput = self.plugin.cache_func("detect_version_files")?;