Onboarding archive templates show posts outside the current category

Summary

Raft's selectable onboarding archive templates can display posts from categories other than the category being viewed. A category archive is expected to limit its post list to that category, but the affected templates run an independent posts query instead. This makes category navigation unreliable and led the reporting user to deactivate the theme.

Customer context

Product / area: Raft onboarding archive templates
Version: 1.1.14
Environment: WordPress site; further environment details were not provided
Integration / third party: The archive variants are exposed through the Otter onboarding theme-support configuration; the submission did not identify which variant was selected
Reported error / symptom: Category pages display posts from all categories
Impact: The user switched themes after 10 days and reported that permalink flushing, disabling plugins, and a custom pre_get_posts snippet did not resolve the behavior.

Reproduction notes

Reported workflow:

1. Use Raft 1.1.14 with posts assigned to different categories.
2. Visit a category archive.
3. Observe posts belonging to other categories.

The user reported trying permalink flushing, disabling plugins, and a custom pre_get_posts snippet without success. Repository inspection confirms the failure path when any of Raft's three onboarding archive variants is selected, but the submission does not state which saved archive template was active. No runtime reproduction was performed.

Diagnosis

Conclusion

Raft 1.1.14 contains a definite category-filtering defect in its three selectable onboarding archive templates. Each affected template declares an independent Query block with inherit:false, so the archive's category context is not used by that block. Raft's default archive uses inherit:true, and commit a4d678a78c6f044cee9dbeb8762e74c22c29fb54 previously corrected the same visible behavior there for v1.0.6. The affected variants were introduced later in commit 1bff20e8d2ca31de1611721a249c84b953c6a41a and are present unchanged in tag v1.1.14.

Where this likely occurs

• User-visible surface: category archives using an onboarding-selected Archive Boxed, Archive Cards, or Archive Row template.
• inc/Core.php — Raft\Core theme-support setup, lines 123–141: exposes the three archive files as selectable otter-onboarding templates.
• library/archive/archive-boxed.php — returned Archive Boxed template, lines 18–20: its Query block has inherit:false.
• library/archive/archive-cards.php — returned Archive Cards template, lines 20–22: its Query block has inherit:false.
• library/archive/archive-rows.php — returned Archive Rows template, lines 18–20: its Query block has inherit:false.
• templates/archive.html — default archive template, lines 16–20: the corresponding Query block has inherit:true; commit a4d678a changed this from false to true when closing issue #23.
• Git history: commit 1bff20e8 introduced the affected onboarding templates, first released in v1.1.0; tag inspection confirms the same query attributes in reported version v1.1.14.

Engineering notes

The inspected defect is limited to the three onboarding archive variants; the shipped default templates/archive.html is configured to inherit archive context. The customer's exact saved template was not provided, so linking their installation to one of these variants is an inference, while the defect in the variants themselves is source-confirmed. A pre_get_posts adjustment may not affect the displayed block because these variants request an independent block query rather than inheriting the archive query. WordPress core Query block internals were not locally inspected; the expected meaning of this attribute is corroborated by Raft's prior issue #23, its maintainer guidance, and the v1.0.6 correction. Issue #23 is closed and addressed only the older default template, so it is not an open tracker for the currently affected onboarding files.

Test coverage status

The available unit suite only checks theme constants and core loading in tests/test-load.php; it does not exercise archive rendering or onboarding templates. No relevant integration or end-to-end coverage was found during inspection.

What to verify or explore next

• Reproduce on a clean WordPress installation with Raft 1.1.14 by selecting each of Archive Boxed, Archive Cards, and Archive Row, then viewing a category containing only a subset of published posts.
• Compare the same category archive while using the default Archive template.
• Verify category filtering and pagination separately for each affected archive variant.
• Run the WordPress PHPUnit suite after adding or locating coverage that renders category archives from onboarding-selected templates.

Unknowns / follow-up

• The deactivation submission does not identify which archive variant or saved template content was active.
• WordPress and Otter versions were not provided.
• Runtime reproduction was not performed in this investigation.

Confidence

Confidence: 94/100

Raft 1.1.14 ships three selectable archive templates whose Query blocks do not inherit the category archive context, matching the reported symptom. The default archive was corrected for this same behavior in v1.0.6, but the later onboarding variants remain affected and no open issue tracks them.

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Source: automated uninstall feedback — raft, 2026-09-16
Generated by bug-report-triage (ID: bug-report-triage_6aab743d306148.85100504)

Start with library/archive/archive-boxed.php, library/archive/archive-cards.php, and library/archive/archive-rows.php, comparing their Query blocks with templates/archive.html and the earlier correction in commit a4d678a. Verify category filtering and pagination for each onboarding variant, then check whether coverage can be added beyond tests/test-load.php. Done means category archives show only posts from the current category across all three variants.