Generated Application Controller #needs does not include itself

I'm migrating a web app from ember tools to ember-cli and having issues. So far I've been able to handle all of the errors, but not this one. I have an auth controller. On several pages I include the needs:["auth"], but the error that I'm seeing when restarting my server is quite odd.

ReferenceError: (generated application controller)#needs does not 
include `auth`. To access the auth controller from (generated application
controller), (generated application controller) should have a `needs` 
property that is an array of the controllers it has access to.

I'm not sure what the error means necessarily, I'm able to debug the compiled script in Firebug, but it's not working when I try adding any needs:whatever to the auth controller itself.

Thanks in advance.