nginx.conf

server {
    listen       127.0.0.1:80;
    server_name  teatapp.test;
    root         /workspace/myapp/webroot;
    index        index.php;
    
    location /assets/ {
        if (-f $uri) {
            break;
        }
        root     /workspace/myapp/modules;
        rewrite  ^/assets/([^/]+)/(.*)$ /$1/assets/$2 break;
    }
    
    location / {
        try_files $uri /index.php?$query_string;
    }
 
    location ~ \.php$ {
        try_files $uri /index.php =404;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9100;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

structure.md

Directory structure:

workspace/
  myapp/
    webroot/
      index.php
      assets/
        baz.js
        hello/
          foo.js
    modules/
      hello/
        assets/
          foo.js
          bar.js

Expected results

/                     =>  /workspace/myapp/webroot/index.php
/assets/hello/foo.js  =>  /workspace/myapp/webroot/assets/hello/foo.js
/assets/hello/bar.js  =>  /workspace/myapp/modules/hello/assets/foo.js
/assets/baz.js        =>  /workspace/myapp/webroot/assets/baz.js

In summary:

• foo.js is only present in the modules/hello/assets folder and gets delivered from there.
• bar.js is present both in webroot/assets/hello and modules/hello/assets and gets delivered from webroot. (it hides/overrides the file in modules)
• baz.js is only present in webroot/assets and gets delivered from there.

The part that doesn't work right now, is this:

    location /assets/ {
        if (-f $uri) {
            break;
        }
        root     /workspace/myapp/modules;
        rewrite  ^/assets/([^/]+)/(.*)$ /$1/assets/$2 break;
    }

Namely the if directive, doesn't seem to have any affect - the bar.js file gets delivered from modules rather than webroot.