Thanks. Yes, that’s how I am doing it currently.
I still wonder if this is a known bug.
Edit: There is a use case where the automation plugin would be better. For example if you plan to publish a thread that is also “featured”. I realize, that the ‘featured topic’ will only be visible for groups that have access to the category, but for admins, it’s still visible. To hide it for admins, a theme component or better, a fork of the homepage-feature component would be necessary. With the automation plugin, this could be avoided.