<!--IssueSummary start--> <details> <summary> Everyone can contribute. [Help move this issue forward](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/developer-relations/contributor-success/community-contributors-workflows/#contributor-links) while earning points, leveling up and collecting rewards. </summary> - [Close this issue](https://contributors.gitlab.com/manage-issue?action=close&projectId=278964&issueIid=461889) </details> <!--IssueSummary end--> **Background** We have multiple projects using the same `.gitlab-ci.yml` which is saved in a single 'ci-project'. When we load it, we just do this: Any project's .gitlab-ci.yml ``` include: - project: remote/ci-project ref: <Version> file: main.yml ``` Inside ci-project, we may have nested includes: main.yml ``` include: - project: ref: ? file: other-yaml.yml ``` **Question** In order to keep those nested includes using the same, we seem to have to configure `ref: $CI_COMMIT_SHA` for all includes in that project. Is that correct? When I was looking at the docs, it said "include:ref: Optional. The ref to retrieve the file from. Defaults to the HEAD of the project when not specified." but I was hoping that meant if I didn't specify ref, the nested includes would all be referencing the same ci-project commit from the parent but that didn't seem to be the case.