Job-level needs take precedence over rules: needs

Summary

CI/CD YAML syntax reference states:

needs in rules override any needs defined at the job-level. When overridden, the behavior is same as job-level needs.

This is the opposite of the the truth.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a project
2. Put the following below in the .gitlab-ci.yml

---
job_zero:
  rules:
    - if: $CI
      when: never
  script:
    - echo "say what now"

job_one:
  rules:
    - if: $CI
      needs: []
  needs:
    - job_zero
  script:
    - echo "success"

Example Project

https://gitlab.com/repsak/debug-rules-needs

What is the current bug behavior?

An error is shown:

Unable to create pipeline

• 'job_one' job needs 'job_zero' job, but 'job_zero' is not in any previous stage

What is the expected correct behavior?

The rules level needs takes precedence, and job_one runs without depending on job_zero.

Output of checks

This bug happens on GitLab.com