Re-enable term-data block bindings

[skorasaurus]

With the introduction of the Term List block and the term name block (done in several PRs, lastly #72380) - (Requested in #49094)

Developers are now able to list all of the terms used in a custom taxonomy! that's a great first start.

For example:

• Think of an automotive blog that has a custom taxonomy named Car Manufacturers, they can now create a list of all of the terms (e.g. Ford, Toyota, Honda) that exist on their website.
• A blog for pokemon trading cards with a custom taxonomy of Pokemon, they can now create a list/archive of all the pokemon that have posts associated with them.

(Note, you can also use the Terms List and Term Name block for all taxonomies, even for tags and categories)

However the current terms block does not have block bindings enabled on it; they were were added in #71376 but later removed in #72275

Without block bindings enabled, the lists of terms is a bit limited in its use; a content creator

• cannot link to a custom archive page that would display all of the posts associated that with that term.

@mikachan ; does implementing this require some updates to core ? (I see WordPress/wordpress-develop#9356 still exists)

cc @cr0ybot @getdave

Does implementing this wait on #72165 ? If so, should we wait for something more long-term like

Some additional examples, include:

• Term Query Loop Block #49094 (comment) (in this example, there's a featured image for each term)

• On a project with a custom post type (of Historical Items of African-American History in my town) with a custom taxonomy of material type, and I want to link to the all of the posts associated with the term (e.g. a book, work of art, letter)
  below is a screenshot of what I was able to quickly make thanks to the new terms query, terms template, and terms name block; I would love to link those terms so that users can view all of the posts associated with that term.

On a separate project:

With the absence of the Terms Query block, I had been building a workaround alternate solution in PHP like below, where I have a custom post type of ohio authors, and a custom taxonomy named author_genre and wanted to link to the list of all of the posts associated with a particular genre.

[cr0ybot]

@skorasaurus

Without block bindings enabled, the lists of terms is a bit limited in its use; a content creator

• cannot link to a custom archive page that would display all of the posts associated that with that term.

The Term Name block has a setting to display as a link to the term archive, and this is set by default in the Term Query block variations (#72307). Does this meet your needs for linking?

The Term Description block was also updated (#71525 & #72238) to work within the Terms Query, and the new Term Count (#72218) is also available.

The term data block bindings were handled via block context from the Terms Query block. I do want to see their reintroduction to allow for the same flexibility that the post data term bindings do, but they were removed due to not being necessary for the stabilization of the Terms Query block for 6.9.

I think it would be helpful to come up with some specific use cases for term data block bindings that aren't covered by Term Name, Term Count, and Term Description. For instance, using the link binding in a Button block is something we actually lost the ability to do, and I think this is the strongest use case. I wonder if there is perhaps a use case for displaying the term ID, slug, or parent ID?

Anyways, even if the Term Name link setting meets your needs, I think this issue should stay open for the reintroduction of term data block bindings in general, but the description may need to be refocused on those additional use cases, and it wouldn't hurt to rename to "Re-enable term-data block bindings".

[skorasaurus]

Yes, I'd love to see the block bindings for the button block just as you described.

The Term Name block has a setting to display as a link to the term archive, and this is set by default in the Term Query block variations (#72307). Does this meet your needs for linking?

I've tried on our custom theme (which is 'classic' all PHP templates but with a theme.json ) as well as on twentytwentythree.

I created a page on my local install (using the Gutenberg built from f944427)

My block markup is available at: https://gist.github.com/skorasaurus/b1230a8c1d0c27db99eda2e8c0b7d7e3

In both themes:

Using the terms list block:

• On the front end: all of the terms are listed and the accompanying term counts are correct but the HTML output is odd... the Term name is wrapped in an a tag as indicated in the following screenshot.

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(UPDATED; 2025-10-17)

Using the Term Name block (nested within a terms query block and term template):
(the term name block's attribute of "isLink" is set to true;

• on the front end: the term name (and the term descriptions) display as expected but the URL is empty

[cr0ybot]

@skorasaurus An empty <a> tag without an href is pretty strange and could indicate a bug worthy of it's own issue. The Term List block uses wp_list_categories() under the hood, which uses get_term_link() (same as the Term Name block). I wonder if using those functions directly in your theme cause the same output?

[getdave]

Term Data binding has been added back since we merged #72165

[skorasaurus]

@skorasaurus An empty <a> tag without an href is pretty strange and could indicate a bug worthy of it's own issue. The Term List block uses wp_list_categories() under the hood, which uses get_term_link() (same as the Term Name block). I wonder if using those functions directly in your theme cause the same output?

Yep, using wp_list_categories( [ 'taxonomy' => 'cpl_citation_location' ] in a page template produces the same result as I mentioned earlier: successfully displays but the links are not corrected. (I understand that you typically don't run wp_list_categories in a custom page template; but the function should still spit out links to the terms.).

[mikachan]

does implementing this require some updates to core ? (I see WordPress/wordpress-develop#9356 still exists)

Yes I believe so, but it looks like the backport for the term data block bindings was already covered in WordPress/wordpress-develop#10305, so I've closed WordPress/wordpress-develop#9356.