Auto_stop_in for cross-project pipeline not activated

GitLab CI/CD
1

How to auto stop an environment for cross-project pipelines

I am having an issue with environments for a pipeline that is triggered from a different project. I use a bridge job in the upstream project like so in the snippet below:

start_mr_job:
  rules:
    - if: '$CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == "merge_request_event" && $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TARGET_BRANCH_NAME == "development"'
  stage: deploy
  script:
    - echo "do something once bridge job done.."
  needs:
    - job: bridge_job

bridge_job:
  rules:
    - if: '$CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == "merge_request_event" && $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TARGET_BRANCH_NAME == "development"'
  variables:
    UPSTREAM_BRANCH: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG #branch name
  stage: terraform
  trigger:
    project: group_xyz/downstream-project
    branch: development
    strategy: depend

As you can see, it is an MR pipeline. I need the strategy: depend to be sure some variables are set from downstream. Downstream, I have a terraform pipeline that has two last stages like so in the snippet below:

Apply:
  stage: Terraform_Env
  allow_failure: false
  only:
    - pipelines
  script:
    - echo "provision resources..set some variables" 
  dependencies:
    - Plan
  artifacts:
    when: on_success
    expire_in: 1 hour
    name: outputs
    reports:
      dotenv: deploy.env
  environment: 
    name: review/$UPSTREAM_BRANCH
    on_stop: Destroy
    auto_stop_in: 1 hour

Destroy:
  stage: Terraform_Env
  only:
    - pipelines
  when: manual
  environment:
    name: review/$UPSTREAM_BRANCH
    action: stop
  script:
    - echo "take down resources.."

The review/$UPSTREAM_BRANCH environment is created as expected but the environment is not auto stopped as expected. Left it overnight to be sure…
On the other hand, the manual stop does work as expected

This terraform.gitlab-ci.yml template and has been a key reference plus environments documentation.

Is there something I am doing wrong? My projects are on Gitlab.com, free tier.

Appreciate all help, thanks!

2

I found that the deployment environment review/$UPSTREAM_BRANCH created in the downstream pipeline (in the terraform project in my example) needs to be also created on the upstream pipeline in the first project, with the same name review/$CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG and rules. Then auto stop works.