editing a general location match to exclude one, specific instance?

I run nginx 1.18.0.

I've had a trivial 'protection' rule in place for a long time

location ~* (gulpfile\.js|settings.php|readme|schema|htpasswd|password|config) {
deny all;
}

That hasn't caused me any particular problems.

Recently, I've added a proxied back end app.

In logs I see

==> /var/log/nginx/auth.example1.com.error.log <==
2020/05/12 22:16:39 [error] 57803#57803: *1 access forbidden by rule,
client: 10.10.10.10, server: testapp.example1.com, request: "GET /api/configuration HTTP/2.0",
host: "testapp.example1.com", referrer: "https://testapp.example1.com/?rd=https://example2.net/app2"

removing the "config" match from the protection rule,

- location ~* (gulpfile\.js|settings.php|readme|schema|htpasswd|password|config) {
+ location ~* (gulpfile\.js|settings.php|readme|schema|htpasswd|password) {

eliminates the problem.

I'd like to edit the match to PASS that^ logged match -- as specifically/uniquely as possible -- but CONTINUE to 'deny all' for all other/remaining matches on "config".

How would that best be done? A preceding location match? Or editing the existing one?

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