`rules: changes` - Strict matching or inverted globs?

GitLab CI/CD
1

Context & documentation

Version: GitLab Community Edition 13.5.3
Documentation: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/#ruleschanges

Use Case

There is a specific folder that does not need to be tested in our project, so I would like to pen the following

  rules:
    - if: '$CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == "merge_request_event"'
      changes:
        - irrelevant_stuff/**/*
      when: manual

This works partially
It does have the effect of making the pipeline job manual when things in irrelevant_stuff is touched, but the problem is that if I touch something in the nearby folder relevant_stuff which does need to be tested, it still comes up as manual.

Is there a way to make this a strict match pattern?
Is there a way to convey “anything but this folder” so I can put a rule above it saying anything but this folder -> always run?

For those who may want to say I can pattern match relevant_stuff, let’s assume there’s too many directories of different depths that are relevant, e.g.

  • relevant_stuff/
  • app/src/relevant_stuff/
  • more_relevant_stuff
  • other_relevant_stuff
  • STUFF_RELEV
  • our_stuff_needs_test

So matching all of these would blow up my YML and also mean the first moment that someone adds new_relevant_stuff that it would be a manual job again.

Thanks for any thoughts!