In merge request gitlab ci shows error that previous job needs another job but is not in any previous stage but it is

Question

What I'm trying to implement is a way for programmers to run pipeline to build and deploy their branch on some server if it is needed by clicking run manually in merge request or on branch itself only after test part is passed.

The problem is that inside branch itself pipeline runs perfectly as I want it to does but on MR's i get an yaml error:

'build_publish_branch' job needs 'test' job, but 'test' is not in any previous stage

I have gitlab-ci here is the most imporant parts:

stages:
  - test
  - build_publish
  - deploy

test:
  stage: test
  when: always

.build_publish_job:
  stage: build_publish
  needs: ['test']

build_publish_branch:
  extends: .build_publish_job
  rules:
    - if : $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH != 'test'      
      when: manual

build_publish_test:
  extends: .build_publish_job
  rules:
    - if : $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == 'test'

.deploy_job:
  stage: deploy

deploy_branch:
  extends: .deploy_job
  needs: ['build_publish_branch']
  rules:
    - if : $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH != 'test'      
      when: always

deploy_test:
  extends: .deploy_job
  needs: ['build_publish_test']
  rules:
    - if : $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == 'test'

What am I missing?

Answer 1

Okay so solution was to just add rule for always and on merge in test job:

test:
  stage: test
  rules:
   - if: $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == 'merge_request_event'
   - when: always