Latest Featured Posts First in Bricks Query Loop (No Duplicates)

In the Bricks Facebook group a user asks:

Brain has frozen – need some help please. [ query help… not grid display help ]

I would like to display Bricks builder query results from 5 CPTs (resources). I want the first 2 results of the query to be the newest 2 posts marked as ‘Featured’ (based on a yes/no ACF field) from the different CPTs.

I would like the rest of the results to continue in date order and not repeat the 2 featured posts.

There will always be at least 2 featured posts, but only the two latest should be featured first. The 3rd, 4th, 5th etc featured post should just appear in the normal query loop output.

And the results use a Bricks filter… so having 2 query loops is not an option.

We can use AI to help unfreeze our brains sometimes or at least have it write the code with us after giving directions on the logic 😅.

Here’s the PHP query for this:

// Define your post types - adjust these to match your actual CPT slugs
$post_types = ['resource']; // or ['type1', 'type2', 'type3', 'type4', 'type5']

// Step 1: Get the 2 latest featured posts
$featured_args = [
	'post_type' => $post_types,
	'posts_per_page' => 2,
	'orderby' => 'date',
	'order' => 'DESC',
	'meta_query' => [
		[
			'key' => 'featured', // Replace with your ACF field name
			'value' => '1',
			'compare' => '='
		]
	],
	'fields' => 'ids',
	'no_found_rows' => true,
];

$featured_post_ids = get_posts( $featured_args );

// Step 2: Get all other posts (excluding the 2 featured posts)
$other_args = [
	'post_type' => $post_types,
	'posts_per_page' => 100, // Adjust based on total posts expected
	'orderby' => 'date',
	'order' => 'DESC',
	'fields' => 'ids',
	'no_found_rows' => true,
];

// Exclude the 2 featured posts if found
if ( ! empty( $featured_post_ids ) ) {
	$other_args['post__not_in'] = $featured_post_ids;
}

$other_post_ids = get_posts( $other_args );

// Step 3: Merge arrays - featured posts first, then the rest
$final_post_ids = array_merge( $featured_post_ids, $other_post_ids );

// Return empty result if no posts found
if ( empty( $final_post_ids ) ) {
	return ['post__in' => [0]];
}

// Step 4: Return query args maintaining the order
return [
	'post_type' => $post_types,
	'posts_per_page' => -1, // Show all, or set a number for pagination
	'post__in' => $final_post_ids,
	'orderby' => 'post__in', // Maintains the order we set
	'no_found_rows' => true,
];