!reference tag not recognised - BUG

Summary

I tried using the !reference tag today for the first time and the CI linter says it unrecognised. At first I thought it was me but in the end I deleted my entire CICD yml files and and copied and pasted from the doco here https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/yaml_optimization.html#reference-tags. It still failed so this is clearly a bug.

NOTE: In my screenshot below I remove the "include" for the external file (first line). This may cause the first reference to fail but not the second one where the script is referenced inside the file itself. I removed it to see if for some reason the "include" was the issue. Clearly it was not

Steps to reproduce

Just copy and paste the example like as so (which is identical to the Gitlab doco linked above):

include:
  - local: setup.yml

.teardown:
  after_script:
    - echo deleting environment

test:
  script:
    - !reference [.setup, script]
    - echo running my own command
  after_script:
    - !reference [.teardown, after_script]

What is the current bug behavior?

The linter fails to validate the yaml file with error: This GitLab CI configuration is invalid: !reference [".xx", "script"] could not be found.

What is the expected correct behavior?

The linter should say it is ok

Relevant logs and/or screenshots

image

Note: This an on-prem self hosted GItlab environment. Unfortunately I do not have access to any more info as I don't have permissions.

Edited by powershellwhizz