Gitlab has had that for a while, and it's very useful as in-between through dot targets. i.e: .scoped-env: &scoped-env key1: value1 ... Dot targets a

Gitlab has had that for a while, and it's very useful as in-between through dot targets. i.e: .scoped-env: &scoped-env key1: value1 ... Dot targets are ignored semantically, only inheritors make them useful. Then further down you can reuse *scoped-env wherever you need. You can also have anchors on individual lines and compose them. It's useful. The author suggests using ad-hoc syntax, or meta-keys. Gitlab supports that [1] and I use them as well. Different but also combinable uses, for various people. Nothing wrong with it. 1: https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/yaml/#extends https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/yaml/#extends