This release of HeadstartWP ships a targeted bug fix in the redirect handling logic. The shouldSkipRedirect function in packages/core/src/utils/fetchRedirect.ts was incorrectly skipping valid cross-domain redirects whenever the pathname of the original request matched the pathname of the redirect destination.
The practical impact was significant: any redirect configured to point to an external domain with the same path would return a 404 instead of performing the redirect. This affected common setups using Safe Redirect Manager, Yoast redirects, or any redirect plugin routing to an external domain while preserving the path.
What changed
- Cross-domain redirect fix —
shouldSkipRedirectno longer skips a redirect when the destination is on a different domain but shares the same pathname. - Resolves #941 — The fix addresses the reported behavior where matching pathnames caused HeadstartWP to serve a 404 instead of following the configured redirect.
If you rely on external redirects that keep the same path structure, upgrading to @headstartwp/[email protected] will restore the expected behavior with no configuration changes required. There are no breaking changes or migration steps in this release.