Query Terms

This page covers how to query taxonomy terms — categories, tags, and custom taxonomies.

Basic usage

Paste this directly into the query arguments editor in the Loop block's sidebar:

[
    'taxonomy' => 'category',
    'number' => 10,
    'orderby' => 'name',
]

Common arguments

Arguments follow the WP_Term_Query API — any argument it accepts works here too.

Argument	Description	Example
taxonomy	Taxonomy name	'category', 'post_tag'
hide_empty	Hide terms with no posts	true, false
orderby	Sort field	'name', 'count'
order	Sort direction	'ASC', 'DESC'
number	Limit results	10
parent	Parent term ID, 0 for top-level	0
child_of	All descendants of a term	12
include	Include specific IDs	[1, 2, 3]
exclude	Exclude specific IDs	[4, 5]
slug	Filter by slug(s)	'news'

More query examples

Category navigation

[
    'taxonomy' => 'category',
    'hide_empty' => true,
    'orderby' => 'name',
]

Top categories by post count

[
    'taxonomy' => 'category',
    'orderby' => 'count',
    'order' => 'DESC',
    'number' => 5,
    'hide_empty' => true,
]

Top-level product categories

[
    'taxonomy' => 'product_cat',
    'hide_empty' => true,
    'parent' => 0,
]

Tag cloud

[
    'taxonomy' => 'post_tag',
    'orderby' => 'count',
    'order' => 'DESC',
    'number' => 20,
    'hide_empty' => true,
]

Child terms of a parent

Use in a nested Loop block where parent is the outer loop's data alias:

[
    'taxonomy' => 'location',
    'parent' => parent.id,
]

Template examples

In the HTML inspector, the Loop block uses get_terms() syntax. Query arguments are managed by the sidebar — the inspector shows get_terms() with empty parentheses to keep the template readable.

Category filter with active state

<nav class="filter-bar">
    <a href="/blog/" class="{{ not archive.term ? 'active' : '' }}">All</a>

    {% for term in get_terms() %}
        <a href="{{ term.link }}" class="{{ archive.term.id == term.id ? 'active' : '' }}">
            {{ term.name }}
        </a>
    {% endfor %}
</nav>

Category index with posts

{% for term in get_terms() %}
    <section>
        <h2>{{ term.name }}</h2>

        {% for post in get_posts() %}
            <a href="{{ post.link }}">{{ post.title }}</a>
        {% endfor %}
    </section>
{% endfor %}

Common mistake

hide_empty defaults to true in WordPress. If you're not seeing terms you expect, check whether they have published posts assigned. Set 'hide_empty': false to include empty terms.

Next steps

• Term provider — all fields available on term items
• get_posts() — query posts filtered by taxonomy
• Loop — loop concept and data sources