gitlab-ci.yml can’t have more than 50 includes

Summary

Our .gitlab-ci.yml has 51 includes. Version 11.9 introduced a breaking change that disallows this.

Steps to reproduce

Configure your .gitlab-ci.yml with more than 50 includes.

Example Project

https://gitlab.com/mauricemeyer/50-includes

The affected pipeline shows the error message.

What is the current bug behavior?

The yaml validation fails with Maximum of 50 nested includes are allowed!

What is the expected correct behavior?

The yaml validation does not fail with Maximum of 50 nested includes are allowed!, but runs my pipeline instead.

Background:

• We very explicitly decided to have more than 50 includes in our .gitlab-ci.yml
• The limit of 50 includes seems very arbitrary
• If the limit of 50 includes makes sense by default, it should at least be configurable

Output of checks

This bug happens on GitLab.com

Possible fixes

• Remove this seemingly arbitrary limitation
• Make the limit configurable
• Don’t introduce breaking changes in minor versions (imho, this is a breaking change as a working pipeline is not running anymore after updating to an affected version)