### Summary If Project A includes a CI File from Project B which has a conditional include, the include is not evaluated against Project A but Project B. Although the expectation is, that the include exists is evaluated against Project A - to allow more general purpose and self-managed includes without additional setup logic. ### Steps to reproduce Basic Setup: - Project A .gitlab-ci.yml ```yaml # project A include: - project: ProjectB file: include.yml ``` - Project B include.yml ```yaml include: - local: sub-include.yml rules: - exists: - "Dockerfile" ``` - Project B sub-include.yml ``` # actually not relevant job: script: echo "test" ``` Reproduce 1#: 1. create a Dockerfile within Project A: 2. run the pipleine of Project A 3. expectation is that `job` will run, but does not Reproduce 2#: 1. create a Dockerfile within Project B 1. remove the Dockerfile from Project A 1. run the pipeline of Project A 1. expectation is that `job` will run, and it does, although there is no Dockerfile within the project which is triggering the CI pipeline ### Example Project Project with the includes: https://gitlab.com/lazy-lint/my-project Project using the includes: https://gitlab.com/lazy-lint/testing/bigtestproject - should run a HadoLint step and a Go step and a CSS step, based on the files, but does not do so ### What is the current *bug* behavior? Conditional includes for file existence are evaluated in the context of the project we are including the file from, if the condition is defined within that project. ### What is the expected *correct* behavior? Conditional includes for file existence should be evaluated against the files of the project which is including the files even if those are sub includes from a different project. ### Relevant logs and/or screenshots  As you can see the jobs are created based on the file existence in the Project i am included the file from, instead of the project where the pipeline is started. ### Output of checks This bug happens on GitLab.com ### Additional customer context - _We are trying to use the "exists" rule to conditionally include, when a docker-compose.yml file is found in a repo, a template that adds the DIND service and necessary variables to the pipeline. Without this, we end up including the DIND service on every job, which is a waste of resources for many jobs._ ### Additional links - see https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/341511#note_782819207 for the initial discussion - https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/account-management/eastern-north-america/granular/-/issues/30#note_1130469947 - customer use case with additional details ### User Impact With the inability for users to reference an include defined in `Project A` in `Project B`, this creates more complexity between sharing variables, etc.