docs: record two measurements from the queue selection work

The first is a second instance of a rule CLAUDE.md already states, with
numbers: a virtualized list can be repainting for a reason you are about
to delete, and here there are two such reasons — so removing either
alone changes nothing observable, and removing both leaves the highlight
seconds late rather than absent. That is the shape a poll cannot see,
which is the general lesson worth keeping.

The second is the hit-scan, because it stopped a wrong fix: the queue
panel is 12% link and the track list 21%, which is the opposite of the
assumption the fix was being built on.

.planning/NOTES.md

@@ -3761,3 +3761,133 @@ the same run. Reproducing it locally is running the suite twice against
 one `make dev-headless` — which is worth doing for any change that
 leaves state behind, since it is the only place a cross-engine order
 dependency shows up.
+
+## `scrollWidth` counts the left padding and not the right (measured 2026-08-20)
+
+The obvious predicate for "does this flex row fit" is
+`el.scrollWidth <= el.clientWidth`, and on a box with symmetric gutters
+it **under-reports by one gutter**. `scrollWidth` is the extent of the
+scrollable content area, which includes `padding-left` and excludes
+`padding-right`; `clientWidth` includes both. So a child may end up to
+`padding-right` past where content is allowed to go while the box
+reports a perfect fit.
+
+Measured on the top bar (`padding: 0 2em`) at 700x600 with a long-titled
+scan staged: `clientWidth 700`, `scrollWidth 700` — and
+`job-indicator`'s right edge at 700 against a content edge of 668, i.e.
+sitting in the whole right gutter. `#143`'s first fix passed its own
+measurement and left the indicator visibly jammed against the window
+edge.
+
+The predicate `services/top-bar-fit.ts` uses instead is the one its
+spec asserts: no in-flow child's rect outside the parent's *content*
+box, both edges, with half a pixel of slack for fractional flex widths.
+
+This is the same family as #69's title trap — the measurement easiest to
+reach for is the one that cannot see the failure — and it is worth
+knowing before writing the next one of these: **the fit test and the
+assertion that proves it should be the same test.** It was found only
+because `top-bar-fit.spec.ts` measures per child rather than asserting
+on the container, which is exactly why #69 needed
+`header-action-overflow.spec.ts`.
+
+## The top bar's overflow is 11px idle and 262px while working (measured 2026-08-20)
+
+#143 was filed as "11px at 600x600" and re-measured as 171. Both are the
+same defect seen with different jobs running: `job-indicator` is
+`hidden` when idle, ~144px wide showing "Scanning Music", and **235px**
+showing a real library's scan title ("Scanning Music from the external
+drive"), because the label is capped at 12rem and gets there.
+
+Swept against the running app with that job staged, `header.top-bar`
+client vs scroll:
+
+| width | idle | with the long-titled scan |
+|---|---|---|
+| 320, 390, 599 | fits | fits (the phone rules drop the filter and the label) |
+| 600 | 611 | **862** |
+| 700 | fits | 862 |
+| 800 | fits | 862 |
+| 899 | fits | 899 (fits) |
+| 900 | fits | 946 |
+| 1100, 1440 | fits | fits |
+
+Two things worth keeping. The band is **600–610 idle and 600–900 while
+working**, so "a narrow corner" and "the header is crowded from 900
+down" are both true and the difference is entirely what is in flight —
+which is the case a seeded, settled app can never show you. And 899
+fits while 900 does not, because `nav-history` appears at 900: the worst
+width for the header is not the narrowest one, the same way 900 rather
+than 800 is the worst width for the content area.
+
+Staging it is `/__test/emit` with a `JobsChanged` snapshot; a job with
+`state: "running"` never completes, so it stays up until an empty
+snapshot is emitted, which is what makes an idle re-measurement look
+like the fix not working.
+
+## Two repaint mechanisms, and neither is pinned alone (measured 2026-08-20)
+
+`CLAUDE.md` already states the rule — *a virtualized list repaints only
+when you tell it to, and the accidental way you were telling it may be
+the thing you are about to delete* — found in `artists-view` and
+`genres-view`. `queue-panel` is a second instance with numbers, and the
+numbers are the part worth keeping.
+
+It repaints its rows **two** ways:
+
+- `onSelectionChanged()` calls `virtualizer.requestUpdate()`, which is
+  the intended one and the one `track-list` has always had;
+- `.keyFunction=${(track) => track.id}` is a **per-render arrow**, so it
+  is a changed property on every host update and repaints the rows by
+  itself.
+
+Removing *either* alone changes nothing observable. That is why #43
+could not be settled by reading the code: the hypothesis in its Findings
+(the repaint is missing) was checkable, false, and would have looked
+identical either way.
+
+Removing **both** does not break selection either — it delays it. Time
+from click to `aria-selected`, three clicks each:
+
+| build | ms to highlight |
+|---|---|
+| healthy | 5, 16, 17 |
+| both mechanisms removed | 134, 3,866, 5,816 |
+
+The highlight arrives on whatever unrelated render happens next (the
+player's 1 Hz position report is the usual candidate). **Four seconds is
+indistinguishable from broken to a user, and invisible to a spec** —
+`expect.poll`'s default 5 s timeout passes the degraded build on every
+assertion. `queue-selection.spec.ts` bounds its selection assertions at
+500 ms for that reason, which is ~30x the healthy case and an order of
+magnitude under the degraded one.
+
+The general form, for the next spec about anything push-driven: **a poll
+generous enough to be stable is generous enough to miss a latency
+regression entirely.** If "late" is a failure mode worth having, the
+timeout has to say so.
+
+## A hit-scan says how much of a row is not selectable (measured 2026-08-20)
+
+`explore-link` stops the click's propagation on purpose — "the row must
+not also treat it as a selection" — so a click on a track, album or
+artist *name* navigates and selects nothing. That is app-wide and
+deliberate, and the useful question about any given list is how much of
+its row it costs.
+
+Asking `elementFromPoint` what is under each x across a row, at three
+heights:
+
+| list | link coverage |
+|---|---|
+| queue panel | 12% |
+| track list | 21% |
+
+This killed a fix in progress. #43 reads as "selection is broken in the
+queue panel, and fine in the track list", the obvious mechanism is that
+the queue's narrow rows are mostly name, and it is **wrong**: the panel
+is *less* link-covered than the list it is being compared against. The
+scan takes a minute and is worth running before demoting anybody's links
+— `explore-album-details`'s tracklist (number / title / artist /
+duration) is the one that plausibly *is* mostly link, and is the one
+#5 is about to add selection to.

CLAUDE.md

@@ -1520,6 +1520,58 @@ three, *no action is ever unreachable at any supported size*. The bands
 themselves already existed; what was new is that they are a promise and
 that the queue panel is inside it.
 
+**The top bar decides what it can afford, and what it gives up is never
+an action.** Its five children do not fit at the bottom of the Compact
+band: the bar was 611px inside a 600px viewport idle and **862px while
+a scan ran**, because `job-indicator` is `hidden` when idle and 235px
+wide showing a real library's scan title (#143). So `services/
+top-bar-fit.ts` is `page-header`'s treatment one bar up — a
+ResizeObserver, every pass starting from all-visible, hiding the
+lowest-priority child until it fits.
+
+Five things about it are load-bearing.
+
+**It is measured rather than breakpointed for a reason specific to this
+bar**: three of its five children are as wide as their *content* — the
+library filter is a `<select>` sized by the longest library name, the
+indicator by the running job's title, the search box by its view-scoped
+placeholder — so any width picked is right for one library, one job and
+one view. Swept with a long-titled scan staged, the bar overflowed at
+**every** width from 600 to 899 *and* at 900 where `nav-history`
+appears, while 899 fits; a breakpoint fixing "600 to 610" would have
+fixed whichever case happened to be idle when it was measured.
+
+**What yields is decided by the promise above, which rules out the two
+cheapest answers.** Hiding the library filter takes away an action —
+`library-filter` is the only control in the app that calls
+`setSelectedLibrary` — so it trades this promise for the same promise
+(#148 is the phone already doing that). Collapsing the search box to an
+icon is what #57 wants and #57 is blocked behind #62, so building it
+here is building it without the thing that blocks it. The two that
+yield are the two that are **not** actions: the wordmark, which the
+window's own title bar repeats and which #48 wants down to "YJ" at
+every width anyway, and then the job indicator's *label*, leaving the
+ring — which is not a new judgement, since the component already drops
+it below 600px and its `sr-only` live region is what announces the
+state either way.
+
+**The wordmark yields its width, not its existence.** The collapsed
+rule is visually-hidden rather than `display: none`, because that `h1`
+is the document's top-level heading as well as the brand.
+
+**"Fits" is the children against the content box, and `scrollWidth`
+cannot express it.** `scrollWidth` counts a box's left padding and not
+its right, so with 2em gutters it under-reports by 32px: the first fix
+read `700/700` — a perfect fit — with the indicator sitting in the
+whole right gutter. Same family as #69's title trap, and found only
+because `top-bar-fit.spec.ts` measures **per child**, which is what
+`layout-overflow.spec.ts` cannot do and why that spec was green
+throughout the defect.
+
+And **the bar does not resize when a job starts**, which is the case the
+whole thing is for — a ResizeObserver on the header alone never fires,
+so every element child is observed too.
+
 **900 is the worst desktop width, not the 800×600 minimum.** The
 sidebar collapses to icons *below* 900, so the main panel is 843px at
 899 and 700px at 900 — the narrowest content area any desktop width

e2e/specs/layout-overflow.spec.ts

@@ -33,6 +33,14 @@ const VIEWPORTS = [
   // was missing its own worst case.
   { name: '900×600 (the widest sidebar, so the narrowest content)', width: 900, height: 600 },
   { name: `the minimum (${MIN_VIEWPORT.width}×${MIN_VIEWPORT.height})`, ...MIN_VIEWPORT },
+  // Below the enforced minimum on purpose, and for the reason 700×480
+  // is below it further down: a scaled display or a large system font
+  // lands the layout here without the window ever being dragged there,
+  // and 600 is the last width before the phone layout takes over. The
+  // *narrowest header* is a different question from the narrowest
+  // content area and has a different answer — this one (#143), where
+  // the bar was 611px inside 600 sitting still.
+  { name: '600×600 (the bottom of the Compact band)', width: 600, height: 600 },
 ];
 
 /**
@@ -145,6 +153,12 @@ test.describe('the app fits in its own window', () => {
 
 test.describe('the title block fits its bar', () => {
   test('the hgroup stays inside the 4em top bar', async ({ app }) => {
+    // Stated rather than inherited from whatever ran last. Since #143
+    // the wordmark is visually hidden at widths where the bar cannot
+    // afford it, so a test about its *vertical* fit has to say which
+    // width it is asking about.
+    await app.setViewportSize({ width: 1440, height: 900 });
+
     // The state a11y.29 landed in. The pair is flex-centred and a UA
     // gives an `h1` a 0.67em top margin, so the block measured 67px
     // inside 64 — pre-existing, and invisible until dropping the h3's
@@ -246,16 +260,26 @@ test.describe('the shell reflows rather than hiding what does not fit', () => {
     test(`no scrollbar appears at ${vp.name}`, async ({ app }) => {
       await app.setViewportSize({ width: vp.width, height: vp.height });
 
-      const excess = await app.evaluate(() => {
-        const de = document.documentElement;
+      // Polled, for the reason the track-row test above is: since #143
+      // the top bar's fit is *measured* — a ResizeObserver decides what
+      // it can afford at this width — so a single read taken straight
+      // after the resize races the observer and reports the frame
+      // before it. Read once, this passed alone and failed in the full
+      // suite, which is the shape of a timing assumption rather than of
+      // a defect.
+      //
+      // The other half of the assertion: at every size this app
+      // promises, the fix costs nothing. A scrollbar that is always
+      // there is a worse answer than the clipping it replaced.
+      await expect
+        .poll(() =>
+          app.evaluate(() => {
+            const de = document.documentElement;
 
-        return de.scrollWidth - de.clientWidth;
-      });
-
-      // The other half: at every size this app promises, the fix costs
-      // nothing. A scrollbar that is always there is a worse answer
-      // than the clipping it replaced.
-      expect(excess).toBe(0);
+            return de.scrollWidth - de.clientWidth;
+          }),
+        )
+        .toBe(0);
     });
   }
 });

e2e/specs/queue-selection.spec.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,271 @@
+import {
+  test,
+  expect,
+  callBinding,
+  navigateTo,
+  LONG_TRACK,
+  NO_QUEUE_SOURCE,
+} from '../support/fixtures.js';
+import type { Page } from '@playwright/test';
+
+/**
+ * The queue panel's mouse model (#43): single click selects, ctrl and
+ * shift extend, double click plays from that row.
+ *
+ * **All four already worked, and nothing pinned any of them** — which is
+ * the whole reason the report could be made and could not be settled.
+ * `queue-reorder.spec.ts` covers the keyboard, `queue-overlay.spec.ts`
+ * covers the panel's mode, and the component tier has the reorder
+ * arithmetic; the pointer path had no coverage in either tier, so
+ * "selection is broken here" and "selection is fine here" were equally
+ * consistent with a green suite.
+ *
+ * Two things this spec is deliberately shaped around.
+ *
+ * **The clicks are real.** A `dispatchEvent(new MouseEvent('click'))`
+ * on a row exercises the delegated handler and *not* the question being
+ * asked, which is what the pointer lands on: the rows carry
+ * `explore-link` names that take their own clicks, and a synthetic
+ * event aimed at the row reports a selection the mouse would never have
+ * produced. Every click here goes through Playwright.
+ *
+ * **The playing assertions use the 90-second fixture.** Every other
+ * track is 2–6 seconds, so "double click plays row 3" read against a
+ * 2-second track reports whatever auto-advance moved on to — measured
+ * during this work as row 3 double-clicked and row 4 playing, which
+ * reads exactly like an off-by-one in `PlayIndex` and is not one.
+ */
+
+/**
+ * How long a click may take to show up as a highlight.
+ *
+ * **A poll with the default 5s timeout cannot see this defect**, and
+ * that is the point of naming it. `queue-panel` repaints its rows two
+ * ways — `onSelectionChanged()` calls `virtualizer.requestUpdate()`,
+ * and `.keyFunction` is a per-render arrow, which is itself a changed
+ * property the virtualizer reacts to. With **both** removed the
+ * highlight still arrives, on whatever unrelated render happens next:
+ * measured at 134ms, 3,866ms and 5,816ms for three clicks, against
+ * 5ms, 16ms and 17ms on a healthy build.
+ *
+ * A user cannot tell "four seconds late" from "broken", which is very
+ * close to what this issue reports. So the assertion is that the
+ * highlight is *prompt*, with a bound ~30x the measured healthy case
+ * and an order of magnitude under the degraded one.
+ */
+const HIGHLIGHT_MS = 500;
+
+/** The queue's own answer, never the DOM's. */
+async function playing(app: Page): Promise<{ index: number; title: string }> {
+  const state = await callBinding<{
+    currentIndex: number;
+    tracks: { title: string }[];
+  }>(app, 'queue.Queue.GetState');
+
+  return {
+    index: state.currentIndex,
+    title: state.tracks[state.currentIndex]?.title ?? '',
+  };
+}
+
+/** Which rows are selected, as the accessibility tree sees it. */
+const selected = (app: Page) =>
+  app.evaluate(() =>
+    [
+      ...document
+        .querySelector('queue-panel')!
+        .shadowRoot!.querySelectorAll('[data-index]'),
+    ]
+      .filter((row) => row.getAttribute('aria-selected') === 'true')
+      .map((row) => Number((row as HTMLElement).dataset['index'])),
+  );
+
+/**
+ * Six tracks with the long one in the middle, so a "play from here"
+ * assertion has something to land on that will still be playing when it
+ * is read back.
+ */
+async function queueSixAndOpen(app: Page): Promise<void> {
+  const paths = await app.evaluate(async (longTitle) => {
+    // `TrackName`, not `Title`: the library model names it after the
+    // tag, and the *queue* is what calls it `title`.
+    const tracks = (await window.__yjEvents.call(
+      'library.Library.GetTracks',
+      [0],
+      10_000,
+    )) as { FilePath: string; TrackName: string }[];
+
+    const long = tracks.find((t) => t.TrackName === longTitle);
+    const rest = tracks.filter((t) => t.TrackName !== longTitle).slice(0, 5);
+
+    // Index 3 is the long one: far enough down that a shift-extend has
+    // room either side of it.
+    return [
+      ...rest.slice(0, 3).map((t) => t.FilePath),
+      long!.FilePath,
+      ...rest.slice(3).map((t) => t.FilePath),
+    ];
+  }, LONG_TRACK);
+
+  await callBinding(app, 'queue.Queue.SetQueue', [
+    paths,
+    0,
+    false,
+    NO_QUEUE_SOURCE,
+  ]);
+
+  // A closed panel renders no list at all.
+  await app.locator('#queue-button').click();
+  await expect(app.locator('queue-panel .track-item').first()).toBeVisible();
+  await expect(app.locator('queue-panel .track-item')).toHaveCount(6);
+}
+
+/** The row at a data-index, not the nth child: see the note in the file. */
+const row = (app: Page, index: number) =>
+  app.locator(`queue-panel .track-item[data-index="${index}"]`);
+
+test.describe('selecting in the queue with a mouse', () => {
+  // The suite shares one backend in file order, and a queue and an open
+  // panel both outlive the page. `queue-reorder.spec.ts` sets the
+  // precedent and the reason: a spec that spends state fails the next
+  // one, in a list that reads like a regression in whatever you hold.
+  test.afterEach(async ({ app }) => {
+    await callBinding(app, 'queue.Queue.Clear').catch(() => {
+      /* an empty queue is the state we were asking for */
+    });
+
+    const open = await app.locator('queue-panel[open]').count();
+
+    if (open > 0) await app.locator('#queue-button').click();
+  });
+
+  test('a single click selects that row and only that row', async ({ app }) => {
+    await queueSixAndOpen(app);
+
+    await row(app, 1).click();
+    await expect
+      .poll(() => selected(app), { timeout: HIGHLIGHT_MS })
+      .toEqual([1]);
+
+    // And it *replaces* rather than accumulating, which is the half a
+    // test of one click cannot see.
+    await row(app, 4).click();
+    await expect
+      .poll(() => selected(app), { timeout: HIGHLIGHT_MS })
+      .toEqual([4]);
+  });
+
+  test('ctrl adds a row and shift extends a range', async ({ app }) => {
+    await queueSixAndOpen(app);
+
+    await row(app, 1).click();
+    await row(app, 3).click({ modifiers: ['Control'] });
+    await expect
+      .poll(() => selected(app), { timeout: HIGHLIGHT_MS })
+      .toEqual([1, 3]);
+
+    // From the last row touched, so 3→5, keeping the ctrl-picked 1.
+    await row(app, 5).click({ modifiers: ['Shift'] });
+    await expect
+      .poll(() => selected(app), { timeout: HIGHLIGHT_MS })
+      .toEqual([1, 3, 4, 5]);
+
+    // A plain click collapses the whole thing back to one.
+    await row(app, 2).click();
+    await expect
+      .poll(() => selected(app), { timeout: HIGHLIGHT_MS })
+      .toEqual([2]);
+  });
+
+  test('a double click plays from that row', async ({ app }) => {
+    await queueSixAndOpen(app);
+
+    // Row 3 is the 90-second track. Asked of the backend, because the
+    // panel's own highlight is a different claim.
+    await row(app, 3).dblclick();
+
+    await expect.poll(() => playing(app)).toEqual({
+      index: 3,
+      title: LONG_TRACK,
+    });
+
+    // Playing is not selecting: the double click clears the selection
+    // it made on the way through, or every play leaves a row looking
+    // picked out for an action the user did not ask for.
+    await expect.poll(() => selected(app)).toEqual([]);
+  });
+
+  /**
+   * The one collision the report is actually about.
+   *
+   * Every track, album and artist name in the app navigates
+   * (`utils/explore-link.ts`), and it does that by **stopping the
+   * click's propagation** — in its own words, "the row must not also
+   * treat it as a selection". So a click that lands on the name text
+   * navigates and selects nothing, in the queue panel and in the track
+   * list alike.
+   *
+   * That is deliberate and it is pinned here rather than argued with,
+   * because the measurement says the queue is not the surface where it
+   * hurts: a horizontal hit-scan of a row at three heights makes the
+   * queue row **12%** link and the track list's row **21%** — the panel
+   * the report calls broken is *less* covered by links than the list it
+   * calls correct. What is left is one deliberate exception, and a
+   * change to it should have to fail a test.
+   */
+  test('a click on a name navigates instead, and that is the exception', async ({
+    app,
+  }) => {
+    await queueSixAndOpen(app);
+
+    await row(app, 1).click();
+    await expect
+      .poll(() => selected(app), { timeout: HIGHLIGHT_MS })
+      .toEqual([1]);
+
+    await row(app, 2).locator('.explore-link').first().click();
+
+    await expect(app.getByTestId('main-content')).toHaveAttribute(
+      'data-active-view',
+      'explore-album-details',
+    );
+
+    // Row 2 did not join the selection — the link took the click.
+    await expect.poll(() => selected(app)).toEqual([1]);
+
+    await navigateTo(app, 'tracks');
+  });
+
+  /**
+   * And the other half of that bargain: the link holds its navigation
+   * for one double-click interval and drops it if a second click
+   * arrives, so double-clicking a *name* still plays the row rather
+   * than navigating away from it. That is what makes the exception
+   * above survivable, and it is the part most likely to break silently
+   * if the grace interval is ever removed.
+   */
+  test('a double click on a name plays rather than navigating', async ({
+    app,
+  }) => {
+    await queueSixAndOpen(app);
+
+    // Read rather than assumed: which view the app lands on is the
+    // user's `DefaultPage`, so naming one here would be asserting on a
+    // config value in a test about a double click.
+    const before = await app
+      .getByTestId('main-content')
+      .getAttribute('data-active-view');
+
+    await row(app, 3).locator('.explore-link').first().dblclick();
+
+    await expect.poll(() => playing(app)).toEqual({
+      index: 3,
+      title: LONG_TRACK,
+    });
+
+    await expect(app.getByTestId('main-content')).toHaveAttribute(
+      'data-active-view',
+      before!,
+    );
+  });
+});

e2e/specs/top-bar-fit.spec.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,207 @@
+import { test, expect } from '../support/fixtures.js';
+
+/**
+ * The top bar fits the window it is in (#143).
+ *
+ * **This is measured per child, not on the shell**, which is #69's
+ * lesson repeated one component over: `layout-overflow.spec.ts` asserts
+ * the *document* needs no sideways scrolling, and clipping inside a
+ * component is invisible to it — which is exactly why that spec was
+ * green throughout this defect. What a user sees is a control rendered
+ * past the edge of the bar it belongs to, so that is what is asserted.
+ *
+ * **And it is measured with a job running**, which is the half the
+ * original report missed. `job-indicator` is `hidden` while idle and up
+ * to 235px wide when it is not, so the bar was 611px inside 600 sitting
+ * still and 862px during a scan — 171 to 262px of overflow, arriving
+ * exactly when a user has reason to look at that bar. Nothing else in
+ * this suite has ever measured a layout with work in flight;
+ * `/__test/emit` stages it without staging the scan.
+ */
+type Page = import('@playwright/test').Page;
+
+/**
+ * The widths this asks about.
+ *
+ * 600 is the bottom of the Compact band (#24) and where the defect
+ * lands; 899 and 900 straddle `nav-history` appearing (68px more to
+ * find, at the width that just gained the sidebar's labels); 800 is the
+ * enforced minimum; 390 is a phone, where the answer must be that
+ * nothing collapses because the media queries already did the work.
+ */
+const WIDTHS = [390, 600, 800, 899, 900, 1440];
+
+/**
+ * A scan whose title is as long as a real one gets. The label is capped
+ * at 12rem by the component, so this is the widest the indicator can
+ * be — measuring with "Scanning" instead reports a bar that fits and a
+ * defect that is 100px smaller than it is.
+ */
+const LONG_JOB = {
+  id: 'top-bar-fit',
+  kind: 'library-scan',
+  state: 'running',
+  title: 'Scanning Music from the external drive',
+  current: 40,
+  total: 100,
+};
+
+/**
+ * Every child's right edge against the bar's own content box.
+ *
+ * The content box, not `clientWidth`: the bar has a 2em right gutter,
+ * and a control sitting in the padding is already the failure — it is
+ * simply one that `scrollWidth` under-reports, because `scrollWidth`
+ * counts the left padding and not the right.
+ */
+const overflowingChildren = (page: Page) =>
+  page.evaluate(() => {
+    const bar = document.querySelector<HTMLElement>('header.top-bar')!;
+    const style = getComputedStyle(bar);
+    const box = bar.getBoundingClientRect();
+    const left = box.left + parseFloat(style.paddingLeft);
+    const right = box.right - parseFloat(style.paddingRight);
+
+    return [...bar.children]
+      .filter((child) => {
+        const cs = getComputedStyle(child);
+
+        // Out of flow is out of the question: a collapsed wordmark is
+        // `position: absolute` and 1px wide precisely so it costs the
+        // row nothing.
+        if (cs.display === 'none' || cs.position === 'absolute') return false;
+
+        const r = child.getBoundingClientRect();
+
+        return r.width > 0 && (r.right > right + 0.5 || r.left < left - 0.5);
+      })
+      .map((child) => {
+        const r = child.getBoundingClientRect();
+
+        return `${child.tagName.toLowerCase()}: ${Math.round(r.left)}..${Math.round(r.right)} outside ${Math.round(left)}..${Math.round(right)}`;
+      });
+  });
+
+/** What the fit pass gave up, read back off the DOM it changed. */
+const collapsed = (page: Page) =>
+  page.evaluate(() => ({
+    wordmark: !!document.querySelector('header.top-bar hgroup.yj-collapsed'),
+    jobLabel: !!document.querySelector('job-indicator[compact]'),
+  }));
+
+test.describe('the top bar fits the window', () => {
+  for (const width of WIDTHS) {
+    test(`no control sits outside the bar at ${width}px, idle`, async ({
+      app,
+    }) => {
+      await app.setViewportSize({ width, height: 600 });
+
+      await expect.poll(() => overflowingChildren(app)).toEqual([]);
+    });
+
+    test(`no control sits outside the bar at ${width}px, with a job running`, async ({
+      app,
+      testctl,
+    }) => {
+      await app.setViewportSize({ width, height: 600 });
+      await testctl.emit('JobsChanged', [LONG_JOB]);
+
+      // The indicator has to actually be up, or this test passes by
+      // measuring the idle case under another name.
+      await expect(app.locator('job-indicator')).toBeVisible();
+
+      await expect.poll(() => overflowingChildren(app)).toEqual([]);
+    });
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * The other half of "measured, never breakpointed": a rule that
+   * collapses defensively at every narrow width fits just as well and
+   * is a worse app. 1440 is roomy at any job title; 899 was measured to
+   * fit with the longest one, because `nav-history` is not there yet.
+   */
+  test('nothing is given up where there is room for it', async ({
+    app,
+    testctl,
+  }) => {
+    await app.setViewportSize({ width: 1440, height: 900 });
+    await testctl.emit('JobsChanged', [LONG_JOB]);
+    await expect(app.locator('job-indicator')).toBeVisible();
+
+    await expect.poll(() => collapsed(app)).toEqual({
+      wordmark: false,
+      jobLabel: false,
+    });
+  });
+
+  /**
+   * And it gives them back. The pass starts from all-visible every
+   * time, so this is the property that a rule which only ever *added*
+   * to the collapsed set would fail — the wordmark would be gone for
+   * the rest of the session after one narrow moment.
+   */
+  test('the wordmark comes back when the window does', async ({
+    app,
+    testctl,
+  }) => {
+    await testctl.emit('JobsChanged', [LONG_JOB]);
+    await app.setViewportSize({ width: 600, height: 600 });
+
+    await expect.poll(() => collapsed(app)).toEqual({
+      wordmark: true,
+      jobLabel: true,
+    });
+
+    await app.setViewportSize({ width: 1440, height: 900 });
+
+    await expect.poll(() => collapsed(app)).toEqual({
+      wordmark: false,
+      jobLabel: false,
+    });
+  });
+
+  /**
+   * The wordmark yields its width and not its existence: `display:
+   * none` would take the document from one top-level heading to none.
+   */
+  test('the collapsed wordmark is still the document heading', async ({
+    app,
+    testctl,
+  }) => {
+    await testctl.emit('JobsChanged', [LONG_JOB]);
+    await app.setViewportSize({ width: 600, height: 600 });
+
+    await expect.poll(() => collapsed(app)).toMatchObject({ wordmark: true });
+
+    await expect(
+      app.getByRole('heading', { name: 'YellowJacket', level: 1 }),
+    ).toHaveCount(1);
+  });
+
+  /**
+   * And the indicator keeps saying what it is doing after its visible
+   * label goes — the `sr-only` live region is what announces the state,
+   * which is the same argument the phone's own rule was written on.
+   */
+  test('the job indicator still announces its state without its label', async ({
+    app,
+    testctl,
+  }) => {
+    await testctl.emit('JobsChanged', [LONG_JOB]);
+    await app.setViewportSize({ width: 600, height: 600 });
+
+    await expect.poll(() => collapsed(app)).toMatchObject({ jobLabel: true });
+
+    const spoken = await app
+      .locator('job-indicator')
+      .evaluate(
+        (el) =>
+          el.shadowRoot?.querySelector('[aria-live]')?.textContent?.trim() ?? '',
+      );
+
+    expect(spoken).toContain('Scanning Music from the external drive');
+
+    // Leave the app as the next spec expects to find it.
+    await app.setViewportSize({ width: 1440, height: 900 });
+  });
+});

frontend/index.css

@@ -104,6 +104,42 @@ p {
     flex: 0 1 320px;
 }
 
+/* What the bar gives up when it does not fit is decided by measuring
+   it (`services/top-bar-fit.ts`, #143). Two rules here are what make
+   that measurement mean anything.
+
+   **Nothing but the search box may shrink.** `scrollWidth` reports a
+   perfect fit while a child quietly truncates -- #69's trap, one
+   component over -- and the indicator's label is `text-overflow:
+   ellipsis`, so it would have absorbed the deficit and hidden it. The
+   search box is exempt because it shrinks between its 320px basis and
+   the 200px floor its own stylesheet sets, and a narrower input hides
+   nothing it was showing. */
+.top-bar hgroup,
+.top-bar library-filter,
+.top-bar job-indicator {
+    flex-shrink: 0;
+}
+
+/* **The wordmark yields its width, not its existence.** It is the
+   app's top-level heading as well as its brand, and `display: none`
+   would take a document from one `h1` to none at exactly the widths
+   where the view's own header is the only thing left saying where you
+   are. This is `styles/sr-only.css.ts`'s recipe, written out because
+   that one is a `CSSResult` for shadow roots and this is the light
+   DOM. */
+.top-bar hgroup.yj-collapsed {
+    position: absolute;
+    width: 1px;
+    height: 1px;
+    padding: 0;
+    margin: -1px;
+    overflow: hidden;
+    clip-path: inset(50%);
+    white-space: nowrap;
+    border: 0;
+}
+
 /* The bar is `justify-content: space-between`, which with four children
    spreads them evenly and left back/forward floating in the middle of
    nothing. Collecting the free space *after* this one puts the pair

frontend/index.ts

@@ -54,6 +54,7 @@ import '@store/theme-store';
 import './src/services/keyboard-shortcut-service';
 import { activateView, deactivateView } from '@utils/view-lifecycle';
 import { installLongPressContextMenu } from '@utils/long-press';
+import { installTopBarFit } from './src/services/top-bar-fit';
 import {
     hasTrackPayload,
     getDragPayload,
@@ -73,6 +74,14 @@ registerBundledIcons();
 // on `pointerType === 'touch'` only.
 installLongPressContextMenu();
 
+// The top bar decides what it can afford to show (#143). Here rather
+// than in a component because the bar is light DOM in index.html and
+// its children are five separate elements; the shell is the only thing
+// that can see all five at once.
+const topBar = document.querySelector<HTMLElement>('header.top-bar');
+
+if (topBar) installTopBarFit(topBar);
+
 // ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 // View caching navigation system
 // ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

frontend/src/components/jobs/job-indicator.ts

@@ -155,13 +155,27 @@ export class JobIndicator extends LitElement {
                goes -- the live region in render() is what announces
                this, and it is unaffected, so the ring keeps its
                accessible name and screen readers keep hearing the
-               state change. */
+               state change.
+
+               [compact] is the same removal asked for by measurement
+               rather than by width, and it is set from outside: the
+               shell's fit pass (services/top-bar-fit.ts, #143) owns
+               it, because between 600 and 900 whether this label fits
+               depends on what else is in the bar and on how long the
+               running job's title is -- 235px for "Scanning Music from
+               the external drive" -- rather than on the viewport. Two
+               triggers, one effect, and the phone's is unconditional
+               because it was argued and pinned before this existed. */
             @media (max-width: 599px) {
                 .label {
                     display: none;
                 }
             }
 
+            :host([compact]) .label {
+                display: none;
+            }
+
             .alert-dot {
                 width: 6px;
                 height: 6px;

frontend/src/components/queue-panel/queue-panel.ts

@@ -277,6 +277,26 @@ export class QueuePanel
         return this.queue.tracks.length;
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Repaint the rows when the selection changes.
+     *
+     * `<lit-virtualizer>` renders through the `virtualize` directive,
+     * which reacts to its *own* properties and not to the host having
+     * re-rendered, so host state like a selection reaches the rows only
+     * if it is pushed. `track-list` has always done this and both
+     * playlist views had to be taught it.
+     *
+     * **There is a second, accidental mechanism here and it must not be
+     * mistaken for this one**: `.keyFunction` below is a per-render
+     * arrow, so it is a changed property on every host update and
+     * repaints the rows by itself. Removing *either* alone changes
+     * nothing observable, which is why #43 could not be settled by
+     * reading the code. With both gone the highlight still arrives —
+     * on whatever unrelated render happens next, measured at 134ms,
+     * 3,866ms and 5,816ms against 5–17ms healthy, which a user cannot
+     * tell from broken. `queue-selection.spec.ts` asserts the
+     * *promptness* rather than the eventual state for that reason.
+     */
     onSelectionChanged(): void {
         this.virtualizer?.requestUpdate();
     }

frontend/src/services/top-bar-fit.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,199 @@
+/**
+ * What the top bar drops when it runs out of room (#143).
+ *
+ * The bar holds five children — the wordmark, back/forward, the library
+ * filter, the search box and the job indicator — and at the bottom of
+ * the Compact band they do not all fit. Measured on `main` at 600×600:
+ * the bar is 611px inside a 600px viewport sitting still, and **862px
+ * while a scan with a long title is running**, because `job-indicator`
+ * is `hidden` when idle and up to 235px wide when it is not. `body` is
+ * `overflow-x: auto`, so what a user sees is a horizontal scrollbar on
+ * a shell that #24 promised would not need one.
+ *
+ * **The fit is measured, never breakpointed**, which is `page-header`'s
+ * rule (#69) and applies here for a reason specific to this bar: three
+ * of its five children are as wide as their *content*. The library
+ * filter is a `<select>` sized by the longest library name, the job
+ * indicator by the running job's title, and the search box by its
+ * view-scoped placeholder — so any width you pick is right for exactly
+ * one library, one job and one view. The same sweep that produced the
+ * numbers above found the bar overflowing at every width from 600 to
+ * 899 *and* at 900, where `nav-history` reappears; a breakpoint fixing
+ * "600 to 610" would have fixed the case that happened to be idle.
+ *
+ * **What yields is chosen by #24's own sentence** — *no action is ever
+ * unreachable at any supported size* — which rules out the two cheapest
+ * candidates the issue lists. Hiding the library filter takes away an
+ * action: `library-filter` is the **only** control in the app that sets
+ * the selected library (nothing else calls `setSelectedLibrary`), so
+ * hiding it is trading this promise for the same promise. Collapsing
+ * the search box to an icon is what #57 wants on a phone, but #57 is
+ * blocked behind #62 and building its modal here would be building it
+ * without the thing that blocks it.
+ *
+ * So the two things that yield are the two that are **not** actions and
+ * whose content survives elsewhere:
+ *
+ * 1. **The wordmark**, which is a brand — the window's own title bar
+ *    says the same thing, and #48 wants it down to "YJ" at every width
+ *    anyway. It yields its *width*, not its existence: the rule in
+ *    `index.css` is visually-hidden rather than `display: none`, so the
+ *    document keeps its top-level heading.
+ * 2. **The job indicator's label**, leaving the ring. This is not a new
+ *    judgement — the component already drops it below 600px for exactly
+ *    this reason, and its `sr-only` live region is what announces the
+ *    state either way, so nothing is lost to anyone. What a measurement
+ *    adds is the band between 600 and 900, where whether the label fits
+ *    depends on what else is in the bar rather than on the width alone.
+ *
+ * Measured against the running app with a long-titled scan staged, that
+ * order fits at every width from 320 to 1440 — and collapses nothing at
+ * 320, 390, 599, 899 and 1100, which is the other half of the claim.
+ *
+ * Three things about the mechanism are load-bearing.
+ *
+ * **Every pass starts from all-visible**, so the collapsed set is a
+ * pure function of the current width rather than of how the window got
+ * there. `page-header` states the same rule and the same reasons: a
+ * pass that only ever added would never give the wordmark back, and one
+ * that adjusted by a step would need a hysteresis band to stop it
+ * oscillating on the pixel where it exactly fits.
+ *
+ * **"Fits" is the children against the content box, not `scrollWidth`
+ * against `clientWidth`** — and that distinction is not pedantry, it
+ * is a measured false pass. `scrollWidth` counts a box's *left*
+ * padding and not its right, so with this bar's 2em gutters it
+ * under-reports by 32px: at 700px with a scan running it read
+ * `700/700`, a perfect fit, while `job-indicator` ended 32px past
+ * where the content may go and sat in the gutter. Same family as #69's
+ * title trap, one property over — the measurement that is easiest to
+ * reach for is the one that cannot see the failure. So the predicate
+ * here is the same one `top-bar-fit.spec.ts` asserts: no in-flow child
+ * outside the content box.
+ *
+ * That is only truthful in turn because **nothing here absorbs pressure
+ * by truncating**. The collapsible children are `flex-shrink: 0` in
+ * `index.css`, so a deficit shows up as a child out of bounds instead
+ * of quietly eating the indicator's label, which is `text-overflow:
+ * ellipsis` and would have. The search box is the one child that may
+ * shrink, between its 320px basis and the 200px floor its own
+ * stylesheet sets, and a narrower input hides nothing it was showing.
+ *
+ * **The bar does not resize when a job starts**, which is the case the
+ * whole thing is for. A ResizeObserver on the header alone never fires:
+ * the indicator goes 0 → 235 inside a bar whose width has not changed.
+ * Every element child is observed too.
+ */
+
+/** One thing the bar can give up, cheapest first. */
+interface FitStep {
+    /** For tests and for reading the DOM back. */
+    readonly id: string;
+    /** Applied to the bar; `on` collapses. */
+    readonly collapse: (bar: HTMLElement, on: boolean) => void;
+}
+
+/**
+ * The order things are given up in. Lowest priority first — see the
+ * argument above for why these two and not the library filter.
+ */
+export const FIT_STEPS: readonly FitStep[] = [
+    {
+        id: 'wordmark',
+        collapse: (bar, on) =>
+            bar.querySelector('hgroup')?.classList.toggle('yj-collapsed', on),
+    },
+    {
+        id: 'job-label',
+        collapse: (bar, on) =>
+            bar.querySelector('job-indicator')?.toggleAttribute('compact', on),
+    },
+];
+
+/**
+ * Decide what the bar shows at its current width.
+ *
+ * Exported for the component tier, which can hand it a bar of known
+ * widths; the app installs the observer below and never calls this.
+ *
+ * @returns the ids collapsed, in the order they were given up.
+ */
+export function measureTopBarFit(bar: HTMLElement): string[] {
+    const fits = () => {
+        const style = getComputedStyle(bar);
+        const box = bar.getBoundingClientRect();
+        const left = box.left + parseFloat(style.paddingLeft);
+        const right = box.right - parseFloat(style.paddingRight);
+
+        for (const child of bar.children) {
+            const cs = getComputedStyle(child);
+
+            // Out of flow is out of the question: a collapsed wordmark
+            // is absolutely positioned and 1px wide precisely so that
+            // it costs the row nothing.
+            if (cs.display === 'none' || cs.position === 'absolute') continue;
+
+            const r = child.getBoundingClientRect();
+
+            // Sub-pixel slack: a flex row's widths are fractional and a
+            // rounding difference is not an overflow anyone can see.
+            if (r.width > 0 && (r.right > right + 0.5 || r.left < left - 0.5)) {
+                return false;
+            }
+        }
+
+        return true;
+    };
+
+    for (const step of FIT_STEPS) step.collapse(bar, false);
+
+    const collapsed: string[] = [];
+
+    if (!fits()) {
+        for (const step of FIT_STEPS) {
+            step.collapse(bar, true);
+            collapsed.push(step.id);
+
+            if (fits()) break;
+        }
+    }
+
+    return collapsed;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Watch the bar and its children, and keep it fitting.
+ *
+ * Returns the uninstaller, which the tests use; the app installs once
+ * for the life of the session.
+ */
+export function installTopBarFit(bar: HTMLElement): () => void {
+    let measuring = false;
+
+    const measure = () => {
+        // A pass resizes the children it collapses, which the observer
+        // would report back to us. It settles either way — the pass is
+        // idempotent at a given width — but re-entering it is work for
+        // no news, and it is what "ResizeObserver loop completed with
+        // undelivered notifications" is.
+        if (measuring) return;
+
+        measuring = true;
+
+        try {
+            measureTopBarFit(bar);
+        } finally {
+            measuring = false;
+        }
+    };
+
+    const observer = new ResizeObserver(measure);
+
+    observer.observe(bar);
+
+    for (const child of bar.children) observer.observe(child);
+
+    measure();
+
+    return () => observer.disconnect();
+}