Compare strings as numbers in WP_Query - php

Question

I am performing a WP_Query on a custom post type called "task" that has a field "stage". I need to get all of the posts with a "stage" >= the "stage" of another task. Problem is stage is a string value, so using >= operator in the meta query won't work.
Currently my hack is to create an array that contains string value of numbers $stage to 50, and query for posts who's stage is in that array. This will work for the time being as no stage is above 12, but not a very scalable or dynamic solution. I'm wondering if there is a better way to mutate a value recieved in WP_query before the operator is used on it?
$stage = get_field('stage', $task_id);
$future_tasks = array();
for ($i = intval($stage); $i <= intval($stage) + 50; $i++) {
array_push($future_tasks, strval($i));
}
$tasks_query_args = array(
'post_type' => array('task'),
'posts_per_page' => -1,
'order' => 'DESC',
'meta_query' => array(
'0' => array(
'key' => 'project',
'value' => $project_id,
'compare' => '=',
),
'1' => array(
'key' => 'stage',
'value' => $future_tasks,
'compare' => 'IN',
),
'relation' => 'AND',
),
);
Ideally the second parameter of the query would be something like:
'1' => array(
'key' => 'stage',
'value' => intval($stage),
'compare' => '>=',
),
But that won't work because value of the stage field is a string.
Wondering if there are any ideas about how to better achieve this?

Answer 1

Seems like, using numeric type could solve the problem:
$tasks_query_args = array(
'post_type' => array( 'task' ),
'posts_per_page' => - 1,
'order' => 'DESC',
'meta_query' => array(
'0' => array(
'key' => 'project',
'value' => intval( $project_id ),
'compare' => '=',
'type' => 'numeric',
),
'1' => array(
'key' => 'stage',
'value' => intval( $task_id ),
'compare' => '>=',
'type' => 'numeric',
),
'relation' => 'AND',
),
);