diff --git a/context/skip-patterns.yaml b/context/skip-patterns.yaml
index 6a28b1f4..873f5c83 100644
--- a/context/skip-patterns.yaml
+++ b/context/skip-patterns.yaml
@@ -149,6 +149,11 @@ global:
   regex:
     # Skip .env files but allow .env.example
     - ^.env(?!\.example$)
+    # Skip a root-level test/ or tests/ dir. The `/test/` substring above only
+    # catches nested ones, because shouldSkip is given a path relative to the
+    # example root, so the root dir has no leading slash to match on. The
+    # separator class also covers path.relative output on Windows.
+    - ^tests?[/\\]
 
 # Example-specific overrides
 # Add patterns here to skip files only for specific examples
diff --git a/scripts/lib/tests/skip-patterns.test.js b/scripts/lib/tests/skip-patterns.test.js
index 55a02869..5c776782 100644
--- a/scripts/lib/tests/skip-patterns.test.js
+++ b/scripts/lib/tests/skip-patterns.test.js
@@ -20,6 +20,18 @@ describe('shouldSkip', () => {
         expect(shouldSkip('.env.example', patterns)).toBe(false);
     });
 
+    it('skips a root-level test dir, not only nested ones', () => {
+        const patterns = mergeSkipPatterns({
+            includes: ['/test/'],
+            regex: [new RegExp('^tests?[/\\\\]')],
+            allow: [],
+        });
+        expect(shouldSkip('app/test/helpers.py', patterns)).toBe(true);
+        expect(shouldSkip('test/test_api.py', patterns)).toBe(true);
+        expect(shouldSkip('tests/example.spec.ts', patterns)).toBe(true);
+        expect(shouldSkip('testing/settings.py', patterns)).toBe(false);
+    });
+
     it('keeps files matching no pattern', () => {
         const patterns = mergeSkipPatterns(globalPatterns);
         expect(shouldSkip('Sources/App.swift', patterns)).toBe(false);