diff --git a/frontend/src/components/PageViewTabs.vue b/frontend/src/components/PageViewTabs.vue
index 929725609..63e9bfb79 100644
--- a/frontend/src/components/PageViewTabs.vue
+++ b/frontend/src/components/PageViewTabs.vue
@@ -195,6 +195,14 @@ function onKeydown(ev) {
   /* -> Enough that the last tab's corner reads as a corner, and not so much that the strip stops
         being flush with the side */
   padding-right: 0.5rem;
+  /*
+    The one gap in the strip, and it belongs to what may sit under it rather than to the strip: a
+    site banner is drawn flush to the top of the article column, pulled out of its padding with a
+    hairline of the column left showing either side (`--site-banner-pad` in `SiteBanner.vue`). Its
+    top edge was the one side with none, so a raised banner met the strip's rule with nothing
+    between them. 1px here is that same hairline, turned along the third side.
+  */
+  margin-bottom: 1px;
   flex: none;
 
   /*
diff --git a/frontend/src/components/SiteBanner.vue b/frontend/src/components/SiteBanner.vue
index b43520c22..13f8660ac 100644
--- a/frontend/src/components/SiteBanner.vue
+++ b/frontend/src/components/SiteBanner.vue
@@ -138,18 +138,64 @@ async function render() {
     reaches nothing else.
   */
   .site-banner-alert {
+    /*
+      One colour at three alphas: the hue itself for the rule, the icon and the heading, the wash the
+      band is filled with, and the same hue at nothing, which both gradients below fade out to.
+
+      The third is spelled out rather than written as `transparent` or mixed down from the hue. Both
+      of those are transparent BLACK -- `color-mix(in srgb, <hue> 0%, transparent)` computes to
+      `color(srgb 0 0 0 / 0)`, which is the thing it looks like it avoids -- and a gradient running to
+      it drags its middle through grey. Stating the hue with a zero alpha is what keeps every step of
+      the fade the banner's own colour.
+
+      The fourth is where the rule ends, and it is the odd one out: opaque, and a step DARKER than the
+      band it is drawn under -- which is the band as composited, not the wash, so it is the only value
+      here that knows what the page behind it looks like. That coupling is why it is a literal per
+      theme rather than an expression: the wash over white is `#faeeef` and a step down from it is
+      this, while in the dark theme the hue is lighter than the page, so the same expression would
+      walk the wrong way and the value there is derived from `#25191c` instead. The rule has always
+      been opaque -- its other end is the hue itself -- so nothing is given up by stating it.
+    */
     --site-banner-hue: #c02636;
     --site-banner-wash: rgba(192, 38, 54, 0.08);
+    --site-banner-fade: rgba(192, 38, 54, 0);
+    --site-banner-rule-end: #f5dcdf;
 
     position: relative;
     padding: 0.9em 1.1em 0.9em 3.1em;
+    /*
+      The rule that closes the band, run left to right from the hue to the band's own colour taken a
+      step darker -- so it thins away to a line rather than to nothing, and the edge stays drawn all
+      the way across.
+
+      `border-image` rather than a background layer or a pseudo-element: it keeps the line in the
+      border box, so the height and the padding above it are the ones the border already set, and it
+      leaves `::before` to the icon. The `border-bottom` above it is not a fallback that gets
+      overridden -- it is what gives this edge a width, since `border-image` paints the border box
+      and nothing else says how thick the bottom of it is. The other three stay at zero, which is why
+      a slice that nominally covers all four edges only ever draws this one.
+    */
     border-bottom: 4px solid var(--site-banner-hue);
-    background-color: var(--site-banner-wash);
+    border-image: linear-gradient(to right, var(--site-banner-hue), var(--site-banner-rule-end)) 1;
+    /*
+      The wash, thrown as an ellipse centred on the band's top-right corner: nothing at the corner,
+      where the page's own surface shows through, deepening to the full wash across the band.
+
+      A `background-image` and no `background-color`: a flat colour underneath would be painted
+      through the transparent end, which is the one part of this that has to show the page.
+    */
+    background-image: radial-gradient(
+      ellipse at top right,
+      var(--site-banner-fade),
+      var(--site-banner-wash)
+    );
 
     /* -> Lighter, because the notice sits on a dark page rather than in the flow of one */
     @at-root .body--dark & {
       --site-banner-hue: #ff8b8b;
       --site-banner-wash: rgba(255, 139, 139, 0.12);
+      --site-banner-fade: rgba(255, 139, 139, 0);
+      --site-banner-rule-end: #1e1416;
     }
 
     &::before {
diff --git a/frontend/src/pages/Index.vue b/frontend/src/pages/Index.vue
index b5c086b71..d91d49819 100644
--- a/frontend/src/pages/Index.vue
+++ b/frontend/src/pages/Index.vue
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@
           :model-value="activeView"
           :talk="showTalkTab"
           :links="showLinksTab"
-          @update:model-value="state.view = $event" />
+          @update:model-value="switchView" />
         <component :is="editorComponents[editorStore.editor]" v-if="editorStore.isActive" />
         <!--
           The lock screen, in place of the article. There is nothing to hide here: the server sent no
@@ -149,8 +149,14 @@
             <!--
               Above the article rather than above the toolbars: what an administrator raises a banner
               about is the content, and this is where a reader is already looking.
+
+              The article and nothing else. The band is drawn flush to the top of the column, squared
+              off to its edges and closed by a rule -- it is the lid of the page, and a discussion or
+              a list of what links here is not the page. `v-if` rather than `v-show`, so it takes its
+              own margins with it: hidden, it would still be holding the 1.5rem it puts between
+              itself and what follows.
             -->
-            <site-banner />
+            <site-banner v-if="activeView === `article`" />
             <!--
               `v-show` rather than `v-if` on the article below, so that leaving the discussion and
               coming back does not re-run the page's own scripts or lose where the reader was in it.
@@ -810,10 +816,36 @@ function onHashChange() {
   // -> A fragment can ask for the discussion as well as for a heading, and one that asks for a
   //    heading while the discussion is open has to put the article back or there is nothing to
   //    scroll to: `v-show` leaves the hidden column with no layout, so the anchor is unreachable
-  state.view = viewFromHash()
+  switchView(viewFromHash())
+  /*
+    Not awaited, and deliberately: this polls for its target rather than expecting it to be there
+    (see `helpers/anchors.js`), so it is already written for a heading that arrives a few frames
+    late -- which is exactly what a view that is mid-transition is.
+  */
   scrollToAnchorWhenReady(window.location.hash)
 }
 
+/**
+ * Move to another of the page's views, as a cross-fade.
+ *
+ * The same `withViewTransition` a page swap goes through, for the same reason: what changes here is
+ * an article for a discussion or a list, and cutting between two screenfuls of text reads as a flash
+ * where a fade reads as a turn. Cheap, too -- both views are already in hand, so the callback is one
+ * assignment and none of the caveats about keeping it short are in play.
+ *
+ * The guard is what keeps a fade off a tab that is already open: the strip's arrow keys select as
+ * they move, so holding one down would otherwise start a transition per keypress with nothing
+ * changing in any of them.
+ */
+function switchView(view) {
+  if (view === state.view) {
+    return
+  }
+  withViewTransition(() => {
+    state.view = view
+  })
+}
+
 /**
  * The view the current URL asks for.
  *