diff --git a/src/DodoSSH.Client.App/App.axaml b/src/DodoSSH.Client.App/App.axaml
index a0055e1..378503d 100644
--- a/src/DodoSSH.Client.App/App.axaml
+++ b/src/DodoSSH.Client.App/App.axaml
@@ -318,10 +318,38 @@
       <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource TextDim}" />
     </Style>
 
+    <!--
+      ◆ ORDER IS THE BEHAVIOUR HERE. The base pill comes first, then its hover, then the exceptions — and
+      that ordering is the fix for a bug this arrangement had when v2 first drew it.
+
+      A pill paints its own Background, which the flat tab it replaced did not. That one detail moves where
+      the hover has to live: `Button.flat:pointerover` is declared far above and used to supply it, and the
+      moment `.tab`'s template rule set a Background of its own, the later declaration won and every tab in
+      the strip lost its pointer feedback silently. The `+` lost more than that — it sits below as an
+      exception, so a `.tab` rule declared after it was overriding the very thing that made it an exception,
+      and it drew as a filled outlined pill contradicting the comment above it.
+
+      Avalonia has no specificity; the later declaration wins. The same trap is recorded further down this
+      file for Border.rowmark. Anything added below must be an exception to what is above it, never a
+      restatement of the base.
+    -->
+    <Style Selector="Button.tab /template/ ContentPresenter#PART_ContentPresenter">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource TextDim}" />
+      <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Panel}" />
+      <Setter Property="BorderBrush" Value="{StaticResource Border}" />
+      <Setter Property="BorderThickness" Value="1" />
+      <Setter Property="CornerRadius" Value="8" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="Button.tab:pointerover /template/ ContentPresenter#PART_ContentPresenter">
+      <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Hover}" />
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Text}" />
+    </Style>
+
     <!--
       The button that opens a connection. A tab in every respect but the marks a tab carries: no active
       state, because it is never the thing showing, and no outline, because it is not one of the things
-      being chosen between.
+      being chosen between. Both of those are cleared rather than merely omitted — the base rule above sets
+      a fill and a border, so an exception has to say so.
     -->
     <Style Selector="Button.tab.plus">
       <Setter Property="Padding" Value="0" />
@@ -330,6 +358,7 @@
       <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource TextFaint}" />
     </Style>
     <Style Selector="Button.tab.plus /template/ ContentPresenter#PART_ContentPresenter">
+      <Setter Property="Background" Value="Transparent" />
       <Setter Property="BorderThickness" Value="0" />
       <Setter Property="CornerRadius" Value="8" />
     </Style>
@@ -337,13 +366,7 @@
       <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Text}" />
       <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Hover}" />
     </Style>
-    <Style Selector="Button.tab /template/ ContentPresenter#PART_ContentPresenter">
-      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource TextDim}" />
-      <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Panel}" />
-      <Setter Property="BorderBrush" Value="{StaticResource Border}" />
-      <Setter Property="BorderThickness" Value="1" />
-      <Setter Property="CornerRadius" Value="8" />
-    </Style>
+
     <Style Selector="Button.tab.active /template/ ContentPresenter#PART_ContentPresenter">
       <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Active}" />
       <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Text}" />
diff --git a/src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/TitleBar.axaml b/src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/TitleBar.axaml
index f9b290d..107fa34 100644
--- a/src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/TitleBar.axaml
+++ b/src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/TitleBar.axaml
@@ -58,11 +58,19 @@
         command", and there is no snippet or saved-command item type for it to run. Clicking it is the same
         as Ctrl+K, which is what the window binds; the design says ⌘K, and this is a Windows build.
       -->
+      <!--
+        Stretch-to-a-maximum, not a fixed width. The design draws this box at exactly 380 and centred, and
+        stating that as a Width on the Border is what makes it wrong: the Button around it is free to
+        shrink when the account name or the vault chip beside it is long, and a Border that will not shrink
+        with it arranges outside its own parent — over the name on one side and over the window buttons on
+        the other. MaxWidth on the stretching button gives the same 380 whenever there is room and gives
+        way when there is not.
+      -->
       <Button Grid.Column="1" Classes="flat" MaxWidth="380" Height="28" Margin="16,0"
-              HorizontalAlignment="Center" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch"
+              HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch"
               Command="{Binding ToggleSearchCommand}" IsEnabled="{Binding IsUnlocked}">
         <Border Background="{StaticResource Field}" BorderBrush="{StaticResource BorderMid}"
-                BorderThickness="1" CornerRadius="8" Padding="10,0" Width="380">
+                BorderThickness="1" CornerRadius="8" Padding="10,0">
           <Grid ColumnDefinitions="Auto,*,Auto">
             <TextBlock Grid.Column="0" Text="⌕" FontSize="12"
                        Foreground="{StaticResource TextFaint}" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
diff --git a/tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Layout.Tests/TerminalTabsTests.cs b/tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Layout.Tests/TerminalTabsTests.cs
index 19da8dd..b1a2b59 100644
--- a/tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Layout.Tests/TerminalTabsTests.cs
+++ b/tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Layout.Tests/TerminalTabsTests.cs
@@ -1,7 +1,9 @@
 using Avalonia;
 using Avalonia.Controls;
+using Avalonia.Controls.Presenters;
 using Avalonia.Headless;
 using Avalonia.Input;
+using Avalonia.Media;
 using Avalonia.VisualTree;
 using DodoSSH.Client.App.Views;
 using DodoSSH.Client.Session;
@@ -241,8 +243,72 @@ public sealed class TerminalTabsTests : IAsyncLifetime
             Token);
     }
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// A tab lights under the pointer, and the button that opens one is not drawn as a tab.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// The only test in this suite that reads a brush rather than a rectangle, and it is here because that
+    /// was the gap a real regression went through. Everything else measures heights and reachability, so a
+    /// strip whose tabs had silently stopped answering the pointer passed all of it.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// What went wrong is worth stating, because the shape of it will recur. Avalonia has no specificity —
+    /// the later declaration wins — and when the tab became a pill that paints its own background, that
+    /// background was declared *after* the hover rule it relied on and after the exceptions the <c>+</c>
+    /// is made of. So every tab lost its pointer feedback and the <c>+</c> gained a fill and an outline it
+    /// is specifically not supposed to have. Both are one assertion each below.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task ATabLightsUnderThePointer_AndThePlusIsNotDrawnAsATab()
+    {
+        await OnTheStripAsync(
+            (strip, window) =>
+            {
+                var tab = TabButton(strip, shell.Tabs[0]);
+                var resting = Fill(tab);
+
+                window.MouseMove(Centre(tab, window));
+                LayoutHarness.Settle(window, 900, 600);
+
+                tab.IsPointerOver.ShouldBeTrue("the pointer was moved onto it");
+
+                Fill(tab).ShouldNotBe(
+                    resting,
+                    "a tab that does not change under the pointer is one nobody can tell is clickable");
+
+                // Off the strip again, so the plus is measured at rest rather than under the pointer.
+                window.MouseMove(new Point(0, 0));
+                LayoutHarness.Settle(window, 900, 600);
+
+                var plus = PlusButton(strip);
+
+                Fill(plus).ShouldNotBe(
+                    Fill(TabButton(strip, shell.Tabs[0])),
+                    "the button that opens a connection is not one of the connections");
+
+                Presenter(plus).BorderThickness.ShouldBe(
+                    default(Thickness),
+                    "it carries no outline, because it is not a thing being chosen between");
+            });
+    }
+
     // ---- Helpers ----
 
+    /// <summary>The presenter the Fluent theme actually paints, which is where every button style lands.</summary>
+    private static ContentPresenter Presenter(Visual button) =>
+        button.GetVisualDescendants()
+            .OfType<ContentPresenter>()
+            .First(presenter => presenter.Name is "PART_ContentPresenter");
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The colour rather than the brush. Two <see cref="ISolidColorBrush"/> instances holding the same
+    /// colour are not equal, and it is the colour a user sees.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private static Color? Fill(Visual button) =>
+        Presenter(button).Background is ISolidColorBrush brush ? brush.Color : null;
+
     /// <summary>Two open tabs, laid out in a window the width the application's is.</summary>
     private Task OnTheStripAsync(Action<TerminalTabs, Window> body) =>
         LayoutHarness.OnTheUiThreadAsync(