Strengthen skip patterns and fix regex state handling

Author: hanna-meda

src/support/steps/broken-links.ts

@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ Then('WP Rocket settings links are not broken', async function (this: ICustomWor
     }
 
     // Validate all collected URLs, excluding URLs that may trigger transactional side effects
-    const skipPatterns = [/\/renew\//i, /\/upgrade\//i, /\/express-checkout/i];
+    const skipPatterns = [/\/renew(?:\/|$|\?)/i, /\/upgrade(?:\/|$|\?)/i, /\/express-checkout(?:\/|$|\?)/i];
     const brokenLinks = await validateLinks(this.page, normalizedUrls, currentHost, skipPatterns);
 
     // Report all broken links at once

utils/helpers.ts

@@ -662,7 +662,11 @@ export const validateLinks = async (
 
     for (const url of urls) {
         // Skip URLs matching any skip pattern
-        if (skipPatterns.some(pattern => pattern.test(url))) {
+        if (skipPatterns.some((pattern: RegExp): boolean => {
+            // Ensure global/sticky regexes don't carry state between tests
+            pattern.lastIndex = 0;
+            return pattern.test(url);
+        })) {
             continue;
         }
         try {