Query: Remove content role from block

[talldan]

What?

Fixes an issue for the Query block where in patterns it allowed content to be inserted at the root of a query block.

Why?

The query block has a very specific internal structure with Post Template, No Results and Pagination, so allowing content blocks to be inserted in ContentOnly mode at the root level doesn't really work so well.

When used in a pattern the block prioritises allowing the user to switch between different patterns instead, which continues to work in this PR.

For deeper changes the user can 'Edit pattern' or detach/disconnect, which is still available after this change.

How?

Remove contentRole: true property from block supports

Testing Instructions

1. Open up a template like 'Blog home' in TT5 that contains a query pattern
2. Note that 'Change design' is still available on the toolbar for the pattern
3. With the pattern selected, note that there's no + appender at the end of the pattern in this PR, while there is in trunk
4. Try selecting a 'Sorry, but nothing was found.' paragraph if your query pattern has it (if not you may need to change design to one that does have this) and note that it's still editable in this PR as it is in trunk.
5. Similarly it should be possible to update the 'Read more' excerpt text, but you'll need to have a design selected that has an Excerpt

Screenshots

Before

(with the query pattern selected, there's an appender that allows adding blocks at the root of a query)

After

(no appender with the query pattern selected)

[github-actions]

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Co-authored-by: talldan <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: tellthemachines <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: ramonjd <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: fabiankaegy <[email protected]>

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[tellthemachines]

Thanks for fixing this! It's working well for me. Change design still showing for Query patterns:

[ramonjd]

Appreciate the troubleshooting and the fix 🙇🏻 LGTM

Thanks, folks!

Before I could insert any block in a posts pattern (containing a query block)

Now I cannot!

Checked nested patterns, and multiple query blocks inside a pattern

[fabiankaegy]

Just clarifying (sorry didn't have the time to test this locally.)

With this change is it still possible to change all of the query parameters such as filters etc of the query block even when it is deeply nested inside a pattern? Because I thought that was why the contentRole was added to this block in the first place.

[talldan]

With this change is it still possible to change all of the query parameters such as filters etc of the query block even when it is deeply nested inside a pattern? Because I thought that was why the contentRole was added to this block in the first place.

Do you have a link to a PR or issue that discusses that? It didn't show those controls before and it doesn't after.

[github-actions]

Flaky tests detected in f563fed.
Some tests passed with failed attempts. The failures may not be related to this commit but are still reported for visibility. See the documentation for more information.

🔍 Workflow run URL: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/actions/runs/22214432500
📝 Reported issues:

• [Flaky Test] should undo bold #48558 in /test/e2e/specs/editor/various/undo.spec.js

[fabiankaegy]

@talldan okay I did some more digging. This actually is not working like I remembered in 6.9 when you use templateLock: contentOnly. However if you programmatically change the blocks rendering mode to the contentOnly one it does still allow selection & changing of the query parameters. Which is really powerful because the query properties are content not design.

CleanShot.2026-02-20.at.08.16.16.mp4

I realize this is not the core experience and so it makes sense to iterate on it. I guess I just got lucky that the current state of it with the contentRole added does make this exact use case possible.

It does mean however that I think we should look at finding a way to make the query block selectable in the contentOnly mode regardless because like I said before, the query properties are content.

[fabiankaegy]

But does the "change design" also still appear when the query is nested in a larger pattern? Right now the testing examples all seem to only show it when the query is the top level pattern block 🤔 Because that is why the role was actually added in the first place: #71686

[talldan]

@fabiankaegy It doesn't do that in trunk either:

I'd suggest making an issue if it's a bug.

[talldan]

like I said before, the query properties are content.

I really need to know where this was discussed and implemented. None of the attributes have a content role, so I'm not convinced it ever was implemented. 😄

I'll move ahead and merge the PR, because it doesn't seem to regress anything in trunk and it does fix an issue.

If there are further query block bugs, lets track them in issues and aim to get them fixed for 7.0. 👍

[github-actions]

I just cherry-picked this PR to the wp/7.0 branch to get it included in the next release: ed9fbde

[ockham]

I just cherry-picked this PR to the release/22.6 branch to get it included in the next release: ae22a41