docs(skill): what a fresh install is doing before you measure it

Three things about a fresh install cost a measurement each, and none of
them was written down: it downloads the real catalog, so job-band is
103px of a 439px screen and every vertical number is wrong; stopping
that build returns cleanly and it **starts again within seconds**, so it
has to be stopped immediately before a measurement rather than once at
the start; and a library added over the bridge does not dismiss the
first-run wizard, which then sits over whatever you are looking at with
a correctly disabled button, reading exactly like a swallowed tap.

Also the scoped-storage path that works, the appops grant whose absence
sends the app to the system "All files access" screen on launch, and
why EXPR='...' cannot carry an apostrophe -- a file path with one in it
fails as a JavaScript error. The positional form takes a file.

.pi/skills/yellowjacket-dev/references/android-tier.md

@@ -524,6 +524,61 @@ Four things about it, each of which costs an hour if met cold:
   app.yellowjacket.dev android.permission.READ_MEDIA_AUDIO` (and
   `POST_NOTIFICATIONS`) ahead of the launch skips it.
 
+### Getting the app into a state worth measuring
+
+A fresh install is **not** a neutral starting point, and three things
+about it will each cost you a measurement.
+
+**It downloads the real catalog.** `YJ_CORE_INDEX_URL` is stubbed in
+`dev-headless.sh` and in CI and is *real* here, so the app spends its
+first minutes fetching ~0.6 GB and `job-band` is **103px of a 439px
+screen** while it does. Every vertical number taken in that state is
+wrong -- one #51 measurement had the album art at 0px and it was
+entirely this.
+
+`__yj.call("explore.Service.StopIndexBuild", [])` stops it and returns
+cleanly. **It then starts again within seconds.** So stop it
+*immediately before* the measurement rather than once at the beginning,
+and check `jobs.Service.GetJobs` afterwards -- an empty array is the
+only proof. `jobs.Service.ClearFinishedJobs` tidies the finished rows
+that otherwise keep the band open.
+
+**A library added over the bridge does not dismiss the first-run
+wizard.** `library.Library.AddLibrary` works and scans, but the wizard
+checks for an existing library once, on mount, and its "Get Started"
+button gates on a directory chosen *in the wizard* -- so it stays up
+with a correctly disabled button over everything you are trying to
+measure. Nothing is broken; reload the page and it is gone. This reads
+exactly like a tap being swallowed, which is the expensive part.
+
+**Scoped storage decides where the music can be.** `/sdcard/Music/...`
+plus `pm grant <pkg> android.permission.READ_MEDIA_AUDIO` works and
+`AddLibrary` takes the plain path; a push into
+`/sdcard/Android/data/<pkg>/files/` looks like it worked and then is not
+there. Some builds additionally want
+`appops set <pkg> MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE allow`, and until they have it
+the app opens the *system* "All files access" screen on launch -- so
+`dumpsys window | grep mCurrentFocus` naming `com.android.settings` is
+that, not a crash.
+
+### A note on quoting `make android-eval`
+
+`EXPR='...'` is a single-quoted shell word, so anything with a quote or
+an apostrophe in it -- a file path like `Blazo, 49'ers - ...`, or a
+snippet containing a string literal -- breaks in a way that reads as a
+JavaScript error. Put the expression in a file and pass it positionally:
+
+```bash
+node ./scripts/android-eval.mjs "$(cat /tmp/probe.js)"
+```
+
+That is the same script `make android-eval` wraps, so nothing is lost.
+Two things worth knowing about it: it does **not** await a promise, so
+an async call has to park its result (`window.__r = ...`) and be read
+back in a second eval; and the shim from the section below is lost on
+every reload and every app restart, along with the devtools socket,
+whose name carries the pid.
+
 ### Calling a binding on the device
 
 **The runtime call does not go over HTTP on Android**, and this is worth

.planning/NOTES.md

@@ -4785,3 +4785,130 @@ broken build. The specs assert the *mechanism* — that the surface is a
 native `<dialog>` at phone width — which is the same move
 `queue-as-a-screen.spec.ts` makes about containment and for the same
 reason.
+
+## Now Playing was not drawing a small square, it was drawing a crop (measured 2026-08-21, TLP301 / Chrome 113 / 424x439)
+
+#172 handed #51 a design question — whether the album art gets a floor
+with the block scrolling, or whether the screen reflows below some
+height. Measuring it first turned up a defect underneath the question,
+and the defect is bigger than the phone.
+
+**The art was never square.** `aspect-ratio` is specified not to
+re-derive the width when `max-height` clamps the height — unlike an
+intrinsic ratio, which CSS2.1 10.4 preserves under both bounds. So
+`width: min(100%, 60vh)` made the width definite, the ratio derived a
+height from it, `max-height: 100%` clipped that height, and the width
+stayed where it was. `object-fit: cover` then cropped a square cover
+into the band. On the device: **264x53**, a 5:1 strip. #172's own table
+called it "39px of art" and the missing half is that those 39px were
+263 wide.
+
+**And it is not only the phone.** The leftover exceeds the width only
+above ~843px of viewport, so every height from ~500 to ~843 drew a
+crop too — most phones, and any short window. The e2e spec written for
+this fails on the old build at 424x439 (263x39), 390x700 (358x315) and
+900x500 (300x36), and *passes* at 412x869, which is the boundary
+falling exactly where the arithmetic says it should.
+
+**Both maxes with auto sizes is the whole fix**, and it was chosen by
+asking Chrome 113 rather than by reasoning: a probe shadow root at
+column heights of 288, 300, 451, 600 and 800 measured four candidate
+rules. `max-width/max-height: 100%` with `width/height: auto` is square
+at all five; the shipped rule cropped at four; `aspect-ratio` on the
+box cropped at the tallest. A corollary that makes it free: `auto` will
+not upscale past the natural size, and the largest tier `saveCoverArt`
+keeps is 400px, so nothing is lost by never exceeding it.
+
+**The placeholder cannot use that rule and needed its own**, which is
+the part that would have shipped broken. It is not a replaced element,
+so with no intrinsic size auto/auto collapses it to its icon —
+measured at **13x58**, neither square nor the art's size. Three things
+about the rule it did get:
+
+- It is driven from the **height**, which is the axis that binds
+  everywhere this view is reached from.
+- A flex item's automatic minimum is its content, so without
+  `min-width: 0` the icon's own width becomes a floor and the box goes
+  wider than it is tall the moment the row is shorter than the icon —
+  which is exactly the state a job band puts this screen in.
+- **A non-replaced box cannot express "the largest square that fits" at
+  all**, because whichever max clamps does not re-derive the other. The
+  height-driven rule alone went **380x484** at 412x869 — a tall phone,
+  #51's other named device — and `max-height: calc(100vw - 2rem)` is
+  what closes it. That is sound here for the reason `60vh` was not: this
+  is a phone-width detail view, so its content box really is the
+  viewport less the host's own gutters, and it is a *max*, so if that
+  ever stopped being true the failure is a square bounded early rather
+  than a crop. `rem` and not `em` — the box sets `font-size: 3rem` for
+  the icon, so `2em` there is 96px.
+
+**Then the design question, and the reflow is the answer.** The
+stacked layout's budget is fixed — 48px of header, 143px of transport
+since #64, 78px of names, 68px of padding and gaps — so the art gets
+`height - 386`, which is 53px at 439. A floor on the art scrolls the
+transport off the bottom, and "controls never scroll off" is #51's own
+Direction and plan 018's promise. So below 500px the art and the names
+share a row, where the art is bounded by the row's height rather than
+by the column's leftover: **53px to 143px on the device**, measured on
+the shipped build, with nothing scrolling and the transport untouched.
+
+**500 is where the two layouts cross, not a round number.** In a row
+the art is `height - 296` and the names get what is left of 392px, so
+the names hold 176px at exactly 500 and less above it; stacked, the art
+is `height - 386`, which passes 176px at 562. It is keyed on height
+alone rather than on the phone's width because it is an answer to
+vertical room — a 900x450 window has the same problem and the same fix.
+
+Two things the audit found that are *not* this, and are filed:
+**#186**, every control that is not the transport is under the 44px
+floor (the sort direction arrow is 28x21, and `search-trigger` — which
+exists only on a phone — is 40x40), and **#187**, the seek bar's drag
+target is 6px tall.
+
+**What the audit did not find is a reachability failure**, which is
+worth recording because it is the promise plan 018 makes. At 424x439,
+on every view -- the ten primary ones, the queue, `album-details`,
+`artist-details`, Downloads and Autotag -- `documentElement.scrollWidth`
+is 424 against a 424 viewport, no control sits outside a scrollable
+ancestor, and a hit test at each control's centre reaches the control.
+The width work of #57, #62, #55 and #59 holds; what was left was
+vertical, and it was this screen.
+
+**A number measured on the device is not a number CI can assert.** The
+spec's floor on the art's height passed here at 114 and failed in CI at
+**64**, and both are honest: this app is long-lived, so a job staged by
+an earlier spec is still on screen, and `volume-control` renders in a
+browser where it does not on Android. Both are chrome above and below
+the view and both move the leftover. That is the same trap the entry
+above about staged jobs describes, arriving as a *measurement* rather
+than as a stuck job. The assertion is the mechanism now -- in a row the
+art fills the row's height rather than being the leftover -- and the
+53-to-143 stays on the issue, where it was measured.
+
+The probe is worth keeping in mind for the next audit, because two of
+its three checks needed a second pass to mean anything. "Painted
+outside the viewport" flags a horizontally scrolling carousel -- the
+home shelves -- so the real question is whether a *scrollable ancestor*
+can bring the element back. And a hit test at a control's centre flags
+everything below the fold in a scroll container, so it only says
+something once the control is on screen. Both first drafts produced
+long lists of nothing.
+
+## Two traps that cost time on the device, both already written down (2026-08-21)
+
+Recorded because both are in `android-tier.md` and I met them anyway.
+
+**A fresh install downloads the real catalog**, so `job-band` is 103px
+of a 439px screen and every vertical measurement is wrong. Worse, it
+**restarts**: `explore.Service.StopIndexBuild` returns cleanly and the
+job is `running` again within seconds, so it has to be stopped again
+immediately before a measurement rather than once at the start.
+`YJ_CORE_INDEX_URL` is stubbed in `dev-headless.sh` and in CI and is
+real on a device.
+
+**The first-run wizard does not re-check for a library it did not
+create.** Adding one through `library.Library.AddLibrary` over the
+bridge leaves the wizard up with its "Get Started" button correctly
+disabled — it gates on a directory chosen *in the wizard*, and the
+existing-library check runs once, on mount. A reload clears it. Nothing
+is broken; it cost twenty minutes of believing a tap had been swallowed.

CLAUDE.md

@@ -2120,6 +2120,54 @@ toggled from `index.ts` would be a second expression of the same fact.
 The view therefore carries its own queue button, because that button
 lives in the bar it hides.
 
+**And below 500px of height its art and its names share a row** (#51).
+The stacked arrangement's budget is fixed — 48px of header, 143px of
+transport since #64, 78px of names, 68px of padding and gaps — so the
+art gets `height - 386`, which at the reference device's 424x439 is
+**53px**: the one thing a Now Playing screen exists to show, smallest
+on it. #172 named the two ways out and this is the second, because the
+first — a floor on the art with the block scrolling — scrolls the
+transport off the bottom, and *controls never scroll off* is #51's own
+Direction and plan 018's promise. Sideways the art is bounded by the
+row's height instead of by the column's leftover: **53px to 143px**,
+measured on the device, nothing scrolling, the transport untouched.
+
+Three things about it are load-bearing.
+
+**500 is where the two layouts cross rather than a round number.** In a
+row the art is `height - 296` and the names get what is left of 392px,
+so the names hold 176px at exactly 500 and less above it; stacked, the
+art is `height - 386`, which passes 176px at 562. Below 500 the row is
+the bigger art *and* the readable one — above it the column is, which
+is why a tall phone keeps the arrangement it has. It is keyed on height
+alone and not on the phone's width, because it answers vertical room: a
+900x450 window has the same problem and the same fix.
+
+**The art was not a small square, it was a crop, and that was never
+only the phone.** `aspect-ratio` is specified not to re-derive the
+width when `max-height` clamps the height — unlike an intrinsic ratio,
+which is preserved under both bounds — so a definite `width: min(100%,
+60vh)` kept its width while the height was clipped, and `object-fit:
+cover` cropped a square cover into the band: **264x53** on the device.
+The leftover exceeds the width only above ~843px of viewport, so every
+height from ~500 to ~843 drew one too. `max-width`/`max-height: 100%`
+with `width`/`height: auto` is the fix and is the replaced-element
+path; it also never upscales past the natural size, and the largest
+tier `saveCoverArt` keeps is 400px, so nothing is lost.
+
+**The placeholder needs its own rule, and a non-replaced box cannot
+express this one.** With no intrinsic size, auto/auto collapses it to
+its icon (13x58, measured). It is driven from the height instead, with
+`min-width: 0` because a flex item's automatic minimum is its content —
+without it the icon's width becomes a floor the moment the row is
+shorter than the icon, which is exactly what a job band does to this
+screen. And since whichever max clamps does not re-derive the other, a
+height-driven box goes **380x484** on a tall phone; `max-height:
+calc(100vw - 2rem)` closes it, which is sound here for the reason
+`60vh` was not — this is a phone-width detail view, so its content box
+really is the viewport less the host's gutters, and it is a *max*, so
+the failure mode is a square bounded early rather than a crop.
+
 **The playing row is a shape, not a hue.** `track-list` and
 `queue-panel` draw a `::before` triangle in each row's own left
 padding, plus `aria-current` — before, both rows were a background tint

e2e/specs/phone-now-playing.spec.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,283 @@
+import { test, expect } from '../support/fixtures.js';
+
+/**
+ * Now Playing on a short screen (#51).
+ *
+ * #51 asks for a layout that "survives" ~424x439 with the controls
+ * never scrolling off. #172 measured why it did not — the stacked
+ * layout's budget is fixed, so the art gets whatever is left, and that
+ * was 39px before #64 and 53px after it.
+ *
+ * **Two separate claims are asserted here, and only one of them is
+ * about the phone.**
+ *
+ * The first is that the art is *square*. It was not: `aspect-ratio` is
+ * specified not to re-derive the width when `max-height` clamps the
+ * height, so the art was drawn as a letterbox band and `object-fit:
+ * cover` cropped the cover to it — 264x53 on the reference device. The
+ * leftover only exceeds the width above ~843px of viewport, so this
+ * was every height from ~500 to ~843 as well: most phones, and any
+ * short window. That is ordinary CSS rather than a Chrome 113 quirk,
+ * so this tier can see it, and the heights below are chosen to cover
+ * the range rather than the one device.
+ *
+ * The second is the reflow: below 500px the art and the names sit side
+ * by side, which is what takes the art from 53px to 143px. That is
+ * asserted as a *relation between boxes* — the art beside the names,
+ * not above them — because the pixel count is a consequence of the
+ * arrangement and would pin this file to one device's chrome.
+ *
+ * **What this tier cannot see** is the device's engine: CI's Chromium
+ * and WebKit are current, and #60's clipping showed what that costs.
+ * Nothing here depends on Chrome 113 behaviour — the sizing rules were
+ * checked against the device itself, at column heights of 288, 300,
+ * 451, 600 and 800, and the numbers are on #51.
+ */
+type Page = import('@playwright/test').Page;
+
+/** The reference device's real viewport. */
+const DEVICE = { width: 424, height: 439 };
+
+/**
+ * A tall phone, above the reflow's 500px. Roughly a Pixel 7, which is
+ * #51's other named device and was not attached — so what is checked
+ * here is the layout it *should* get, not that device.
+ */
+const TALL_PHONE = { width: 412, height: 869 };
+
+/** Inside the crop's old range and above the reflow: a short window. */
+const SHORT_WINDOW = { width: 390, height: 700 };
+
+/**
+ * The height the layout reflows at. Written down once here because the
+ * specs have to know which arrangement to *wait* for, not only which
+ * to assert.
+ */
+const REFLOW_AT = 500;
+
+/** Put a track in the player, so the view has art and names to lay out. */
+async function stageATrack(page: Page): Promise<void> {
+  await page.evaluate(async () => {
+    const tracks = (await window.__yjEvents.call(
+      'library.Library.GetTracks',
+      [0],
+      10_000,
+    )) as { FilePath: string }[];
+
+    await window.__yjEvents.call(
+      'queue.Queue.SetQueue',
+      [tracks.slice(0, 4).map((t) => t.FilePath), 0, false, { type: '', id: 0, label: '' }],
+      10_000,
+    );
+  });
+}
+
+/** Open the full-screen view and wait for the shell to say so. */
+async function openNowPlaying(page: Page): Promise<void> {
+  await page.evaluate(() => {
+    document.dispatchEvent(
+      new CustomEvent('navigate', {
+        detail: { view: 'now-playing' },
+        bubbles: true,
+      }),
+    );
+  });
+
+  await expect(page.getByTestId('main-content')).toHaveAttribute(
+    'data-active-view',
+    'now-playing',
+  );
+
+  // The attribute is the shell's bookkeeping and lands before the view
+  // has a track, so measuring on it alone races the first layout --
+  // which showed up as a 60x5 art on the first spec of a cold run.
+  //
+  // Waiting for a non-zero box is not enough on its own either: a
+  // previous test leaves the *other* arrangement on screen, and a
+  // stale column satisfies "has a size" perfectly. So the wait is for
+  // the arrangement this viewport should have, which is the thing
+  // every assertion below depends on. Found by this file passing one
+  // test at a time and failing in file order.
+  const wantRow = (page.viewportSize()?.height ?? 0) <= REFLOW_AT;
+
+  await page.waitForFunction(
+    (row: boolean) => {
+      const v = document.querySelector('now-playing-view');
+      const stack = v?.shadowRoot?.querySelector('.stack');
+      const el = v?.shadowRoot?.querySelector('.art img, .art .placeholder');
+      const t = v?.shadowRoot?.querySelector('.transport');
+
+      if (!el || !t) return false;
+
+      // A build with no `.stack` at all is the one before this change,
+      // and the squareness assertions are still meaningful against it
+      // -- so this waits for the arrangement only where there is one to
+      // wait for. Otherwise reverting the component to check that these
+      // tests bite produces eight timeouts instead of the measurements
+      // that make the case.
+      if (stack) {
+        const dir = getComputedStyle(stack).flexDirection;
+
+        if (dir !== (row ? 'row' : 'column')) return false;
+      }
+
+      const r = el.getBoundingClientRect();
+
+      return r.width > 0 && r.height > 0 && t.getBoundingClientRect().height > 0;
+    },
+    wantRow,
+  );
+}
+
+/**
+ * The boxes this file reasons about, read in one evaluate.
+ *
+ * It reaches into the view's shadow root rather than using locators
+ * because the question is geometric — where these boxes are *relative
+ * to each other* — and a testid per edge would be four locators and
+ * four round trips to say one thing.
+ */
+async function boxes(page: Page) {
+  return page.evaluate(() => {
+    const v = document.querySelector('now-playing-view');
+
+    if (!v || !v.shadowRoot) return null;
+
+    const rect = (sel: string) => {
+      const el = v.shadowRoot!.querySelector(sel);
+
+      if (!el) return null;
+
+      const r = el.getBoundingClientRect();
+
+      return {
+        left: r.left, right: r.right, top: r.top, bottom: r.bottom,
+        width: r.width, height: r.height,
+      };
+    };
+
+    return {
+      // Whichever of the two the track has; both carry the sizing.
+      art: rect('.art img') ?? rect('.art .placeholder'),
+      artBox: rect('.art'),
+      stack: rect('.stack'),
+      meta: rect('.meta'),
+      transport: rect('.transport'),
+      scrollHeight: v.scrollHeight,
+      clientHeight: v.clientHeight,
+    };
+  });
+}
+
+test.describe('Now Playing survives a short screen', () => {
+  test.beforeEach(async ({ app }) => {
+    await stageATrack(app);
+  });
+
+  /**
+   * The crop, at four heights spanning the range it covered. This is
+   * the assertion that fails on the build before this change: at
+   * 424x439 the art measured 264x53.
+   */
+  for (const vp of [DEVICE, SHORT_WINDOW, TALL_PHONE, { width: 900, height: 500 }]) {
+    test(`draws the art square at ${vp.width}x${vp.height}`, async ({ app }) => {
+      await app.setViewportSize(vp);
+      await openNowPlaying(app);
+
+      const b = await boxes(app);
+
+      expect(b, 'now-playing-view did not mount').not.toBeNull();
+      expect(b!.art, 'neither art nor placeholder rendered').not.toBeNull();
+
+      const { width, height } = b!.art!;
+
+      expect(width, 'the art has no width').toBeGreaterThan(0);
+      // One pixel of slack for sub-pixel layout, and no more: the
+      // defect this guards was a 5:1 band.
+      expect(
+        Math.abs(width - height),
+        `art is ${Math.round(width)}x${Math.round(height)}, not square`,
+      ).toBeLessThanOrEqual(1);
+    });
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * The promise #51 states and plan 018's matrix repeats. A floor on
+   * the art with the block scrolling was the other option on #172 and
+   * this is why it was not taken.
+   */
+  test('never scrolls the transport off the bottom', async ({ app }) => {
+    await app.setViewportSize(DEVICE);
+    await openNowPlaying(app);
+
+    const b = await boxes(app);
+
+    expect(b!.transport!.bottom).toBeLessThanOrEqual(DEVICE.height);
+    expect(
+      b!.scrollHeight,
+      'the view scrolls, so the transport can be moved off screen',
+    ).toBeLessThanOrEqual(b!.clientHeight + 1);
+  });
+
+  /**
+   * The reflow itself, as a relation rather than a measurement: below
+   * 500px the names are *beside* the art, above it they are below.
+   */
+  test('puts the names beside the art below 500px', async ({ app }) => {
+    await app.setViewportSize(DEVICE);
+    await openNowPlaying(app);
+
+    const b = await boxes(app);
+
+    expect(
+      b!.meta!.left,
+      'the names are not to the right of the art',
+    ).toBeGreaterThanOrEqual(b!.artBox!.right - 1);
+  });
+
+  test('keeps the names below the art on a tall phone', async ({ app }) => {
+    await app.setViewportSize(TALL_PHONE);
+    await openNowPlaying(app);
+
+    const b = await boxes(app);
+
+    expect(
+      b!.meta!.top,
+      'the names are not below the art',
+    ).toBeGreaterThanOrEqual(b!.artBox!.bottom - 1);
+  });
+
+  /**
+   * What the reflow actually does, stated as a mechanism rather than
+   * as a number: in a row the art is bounded by the row's *height*,
+   * so it fills it — where in a column it is the leftover after the
+   * names, which is what made it 53px.
+   *
+   * **The pixel count is deliberately not asserted here.** Two drafts
+   * tried. The first compared the art against the column's leftover
+   * computed from the boxes on screen and passed on the broken build,
+   * because the subtraction goes negative when the names are taller
+   * than the art — precisely the defect. The second put a floor of
+   * 100px on it, passed locally at 114 and **failed in CI at 64**: this
+   * app is long-lived, so a job staged by an earlier spec is still on
+   * screen, and the volume control renders here where it does not on
+   * Android. Both are chrome above and below this view, and both move
+   * the leftover. A test that asserts how much room CI happened to
+   * have is a test about the runner.
+   *
+   * The device numbers — 53px to 143px — are on #51, measured there,
+   * which is the only tier that can honestly produce them.
+   */
+  test('fills the row with the art rather than the leftover', async ({ app }) => {
+    await app.setViewportSize(DEVICE);
+    await openNowPlaying(app);
+
+    const b = await boxes(app);
+
+    expect(b!.stack, 'there is no row to fill').not.toBeNull();
+    expect(
+      Math.abs(b!.artBox!.height - b!.stack!.height),
+      'the art does not fill the row, so it is still a leftover',
+    ).toBeLessThanOrEqual(1);
+  });
+});

frontend/src/components/now-playing-view/now-playing-view.ts

@@ -105,6 +105,19 @@ export class NowPlayingView extends LitElement {
             color: var(--yj-text-secondary, #adb5bd);
         }
 
+        /* The art and the names are one block, so that a short
+           screen can lay them out side by side without either of them
+           knowing about the other's box. Vertically it is exactly what
+           the host used to do -- same gap, art flexible, names fixed --
+           so the tall layout is unchanged. */
+        .stack {
+            display: flex;
+            flex-direction: column;
+            gap: 0.75em;
+            flex: 1 1 auto;
+            min-height: 0;
+        }
+
         .art {
             flex: 1 1 auto;
             display: flex;
@@ -113,38 +126,89 @@ export class NowPlayingView extends LitElement {
             min-height: 0;
         }
 
-        .art img,
-        .art .placeholder {
-            /* Square, and never taller than the room left over: the
-               art is the one thing here that would happily push the
-               transport off the bottom of a short phone.
+        .art img {
+            /* Square, and never larger than the room left over --
+               where "square" is a property of what is painted and not
+               just of what was asked for.
 
-               **max-height is what actually keeps that promise**, and
-               it was missing. With a definite width and
-               a 1:1 aspect-ratio the height is *derived from the width*
-               and is bounded by nothing: at the reference device's
-               424x439 that is a 263px square (60vh) in a box with far
-               less than 263px left, so the art overflowed its own
-               centred flex item and drew over the header above and the
-               title below it. The comment claimed this was handled;
-               60vh is a bound on the *viewport*, not on the room left
-               over, and those differ by however much chrome is above
-               and below.
+               The previous rule asked for a square and did not get
+               one. width: min(100%, 60vh) makes the width definite,
+               aspect-ratio: 1 derives the height from it, and
+               max-height: 100% then clamps that height **without
+               re-deriving the width** -- which is how the
+               aspect-ratio property is specified to behave, unlike
+               an intrinsic ratio. So whenever the room left over was
+               shorter than the box was wide, the art was drawn as a
+               letterbox strip and object-fit: cover cropped the
+               cover to it. Measured on the reference device at
+               424x439: **264x53**, a 5:1 band of a square image.
 
-               Pre-existing -- screenshotted on main -- and made acute
-               by #56, which gives the transport 95px more than it had.
-               Found by reading a screenshot, which is the only tier
-               that can see it: nothing fails, nothing overflows the
-               *shell*, and every control is still hittable. */
-            width: min(100%, 60vh);
+               That is not only the phone. The leftover exceeds the
+               width only above ~843px of viewport, so every height
+               from ~500 to ~843 -- most phones, and any small window
+               -- drew a cropped strip too.
+
+               Both maxes with auto sizes is the fix, and it is the
+               replaced-element path rather than the aspect-ratio
+               one: the used size preserves the ratio under *both*
+               bounds (CSS2.1 10.4), so the art is square at every
+               height. Checked against Chrome 113 itself -- the
+               device's engine -- at column heights of 288, 300, 451,
+               600 and 800: square at all five, where the old rule
+               cropped at four.
+
+               A corollary worth knowing: auto will not upscale past
+               the image's natural size, and the largest tier
+               saveCoverArt keeps is 400px. Drawing it larger was
+               upscaling, so nothing is lost. */
+            max-width: 100%;
             max-height: 100%;
+            width: auto;
+            height: auto;
             aspect-ratio: 1;
             object-fit: cover;
             border-radius: 12px;
             background-color: var(--yj-bg-elevated, #343a40);
         }
 
+        /* The placeholder is not a replaced element, so it cannot use
+           the rule above: with no intrinsic size, auto/auto collapses
+           it to its icon -- measured at 13x58 in Chrome 113, which is
+           neither square nor the art's size.
+
+           So it is sized from the height, and then bounded by the
+           width in the one way a box like this can be. A non-replaced
+           element cannot express "the largest square that fits" in a
+           single rule: aspect-ratio derives the second axis from the
+           first, and whichever max clamps it does not re-derive the
+           other, which is the same trap the image rule above is about.
+           Driving it from the height alone is right until the column
+           is taller than it is wide -- ~843px of viewport, which is a
+           tall phone and #51's other named device -- and there it went
+           380x484.
+
+           max-height in viewport units is what closes it, and it is
+           sound here for the reason 60vh was not: this view is a
+           phone-width detail view, so its content box really is the
+           viewport less the host's own 1rem gutters. It is a *max*, so
+           the failure mode if that ever stopped being true is a square
+           bounded slightly early rather than a crop. rem and not em --
+           this box sets font-size: 3rem for the icon, so 2em here
+           would be 96px. */
         .art .placeholder {
+            height: 100%;
+            width: auto;
+            max-width: 100%;
+            max-height: calc(100vw - 2rem);
+            /* A flex item's automatic minimum is its content, so
+               without this the icon's own width becomes a floor and
+               the box goes wider than it is tall the moment the row is
+               shorter than the icon -- which is exactly the state a
+               job band puts this screen in. */
+            min-width: 0;
+            aspect-ratio: 1;
+            border-radius: 12px;
+            background-color: var(--yj-bg-elevated, #343a40);
             display: flex;
             align-items: center;
             justify-content: center;
@@ -232,6 +296,60 @@ export class NowPlayingView extends LitElement {
             color: var(--yj-text-secondary, #adb5bd);
             text-align: center;
         }
+
+        /* Below 500px of viewport the art and the names sit side by
+           side, and that is the whole of this screen's answer to a
+           short phone (#51).
+
+           The stacked layout cannot be rescued by sizing alone. Its
+           budget is fixed -- 48px of header, 143px of transport since
+           #64, 78px of names, 68px of padding and gaps -- so the art
+           gets height - 386, which on the reference device's 424x439
+           is **53px**. #172 measured 39px before #64 and named the
+           two options: give the art a floor and let the block scroll,
+           or reflow. A floor scrolls the transport off the bottom,
+           and "controls never scroll off" is #51's own Direction and
+           plan 018's promise -- so it is the reflow.
+
+           Sideways the art is bounded by the row's height rather than
+           by the column's leftover, which is the whole gain: the same
+           439px screen goes from a 53px sliver to **143px**, measured
+           on the device, with nothing scrolling and the transport
+           untouched.
+
+           500 is where the two layouts cross rather than a round
+           number. In a row the art is height - 296 and the names get
+           what is left of 392px, so the names hold 176px at exactly
+           500 and less above it; stacked, the art is height - 386,
+           which passes 176px at 562. Below 500 the row is the bigger
+           art *and* the readable one -- above it the column is, which
+           is why a tall phone (a Pixel 7's ~869) keeps the layout it
+           has. Unverified on that device: none was attached.
+
+           It is keyed on height alone, not on the phone's width,
+           because it is an answer to vertical room -- a 900x450 window
+           has the same problem and the same fix. */
+        @media (max-height: 500px) {
+            .stack {
+                flex-direction: row;
+                align-items: center;
+            }
+
+            /* A square of the row's height. The box has to carry the
+               ratio here rather than the image, because in a row the
+               art's width is what the ratio has to produce -- and the
+               image's own rule then fits it to a box that is already
+               square. */
+            .art {
+                flex: 0 1 auto;
+                height: 100%;
+                aspect-ratio: 1;
+            }
+
+            .meta {
+                flex: 1 1 auto;
+            }
+        }
     `];
 
     private back() {
@@ -283,55 +401,57 @@ export class NowPlayingView extends LitElement {
         return html`
             ${this.renderHeader()}
 
-            <div class="art">
-                ${art
-                    ? html`<img
-                          src=${art}
-                          alt=""
-                          decoding="async"
-                          data-testid="npv-art"
-                      />`
-                    : html`<div class="placeholder" aria-hidden="true">
-                          <wa-icon name="compact-disc"></wa-icon>
-                      </div>`}
-            </div>
-
-            <div class="meta">
-                <div class="names">
-                    <h2 class="title" data-testid="npv-title">
-                        ${track.title || track.fileName}
-                    </h2>
-                    <p class="artist">
-                        ${creditLink(
-                            creditStore.credits(track.recordingMbid),
-                            track.artist,
-                            track.artistMbid,
-                        )}
-                    </p>
-                    ${track.album
-                        ? html`<p class="album">
-                              ${albumLink(
-                                  track.album,
-                                  track.releaseGroupMbid,
-                                  undefined,
-                                  track.artist,
-                              )}
-                          </p>`
-                        : nothing}
+            <div class="stack">
+                <div class="art">
+                    ${art
+                        ? html`<img
+                              src=${art}
+                              alt=""
+                              decoding="async"
+                              data-testid="npv-art"
+                          />`
+                        : html`<div class="placeholder" aria-hidden="true">
+                              <wa-icon name="compact-disc"></wa-icon>
+                          </div>`}
                 </div>
 
-                <button
-                    type="button"
-                    class="favorite ${favorited ? 'on' : ''}"
-                    data-testid="npv-favorite"
-                    aria-pressed=${favorited ? 'true' : 'false'}
-                    aria-label=${favorited
-                        ? `Remove ${track.title} from ${this.favCtrl.playlistName}`
-                        : `Add ${track.title} to ${this.favCtrl.playlistName}`}
-                    @click=${this.toggleFavorite}
-                >
-                    <wa-icon name=${this.favCtrl.iconFor(favorited)}></wa-icon>
-                </button>
+                <div class="meta">
+                    <div class="names">
+                        <h2 class="title" data-testid="npv-title">
+                            ${track.title || track.fileName}
+                        </h2>
+                        <p class="artist">
+                            ${creditLink(
+                                creditStore.credits(track.recordingMbid),
+                                track.artist,
+                                track.artistMbid,
+                            )}
+                        </p>
+                        ${track.album
+                            ? html`<p class="album">
+                                  ${albumLink(
+                                      track.album,
+                                      track.releaseGroupMbid,
+                                      undefined,
+                                      track.artist,
+                                  )}
+                              </p>`
+                            : nothing}
+                    </div>
+
+                    <button
+                        type="button"
+                        class="favorite ${favorited ? 'on' : ''}"
+                        data-testid="npv-favorite"
+                        aria-pressed=${favorited ? 'true' : 'false'}
+                        aria-label=${favorited
+                            ? `Remove ${track.title} from ${this.favCtrl.playlistName}`
+                            : `Add ${track.title} to ${this.favCtrl.playlistName}`}
+                        @click=${this.toggleFavorite}
+                    >
+                        <wa-icon name=${this.favCtrl.iconFor(favorited)}></wa-icon>
+                    </button>
+                </div>
             </div>
 
             <div class="transport">