diff --git a/frontend/src/views/ProjectView.vue b/frontend/src/views/ProjectView.vue
index f3047ec..98abc6d 100644
--- a/frontend/src/views/ProjectView.vue
+++ b/frontend/src/views/ProjectView.vue
@@ -114,6 +114,7 @@ const activeTab = ref<"tasks" | "notes" | "systems" | "rules" | "design">("tasks
 const tasks = ref<NoteItem[]>([]);
 const notes = ref<NoteItem[]>([]);
 const tasksLoading = ref(false);
+const tasksError = ref<string | null>(null);
 const notesLoading = ref(false);
 
 const milestones = ref<Milestone[]>([]);
@@ -170,8 +171,49 @@ function toggleMilestoneCollapse(id: number) {
   }
 }
 
+// A milestone IS the plan, so its body carries the whole design — Goal,
+// Approach, Verification, and often several hundred words of reasoning. Rendered
+// in full, one milestone's plan pushes every other milestone off the screen, and
+// the board stops being a board.
+//
+// Length is judged on the SOURCE, not by measuring the rendered box. Measuring
+// would be exact, but it means a ref per milestone, a post-render scrollHeight
+// read, and a re-measure on every markdown change — a lot of machinery to decide
+// whether to show one button. This proxy is wrong only in the narrow band around
+// the threshold, where either answer is fine.
+const PLAN_CLAMP_CHARS = 400;
+
+const expandedPlans = ref<Set<number>>(new Set());
+
+function isPlanLong(ms: Milestone): boolean {
+  return (ms.body || "").length > PLAN_CLAMP_CHARS;
+}
+
+function isPlanClamped(ms: Milestone): boolean {
+  return isPlanLong(ms) && !expandedPlans.value.has(ms.id);
+}
+
+function togglePlanExpanded(id: number) {
+  if (expandedPlans.value.has(id)) {
+    expandedPlans.value.delete(id);
+  } else {
+    expandedPlans.value.add(id);
+  }
+}
+
+// Milestones this has already ruled on. Without it, the rule re-applies on every
+// reload — and `loadMilestones` runs after a task's status changes. So expanding
+// a finished milestone and then ticking anything snapped it shut again, with no
+// visible cause. That is half of why the collapse state read as arbitrary: it
+// wasn't only deciding at START, it was overriding the reader continuously.
+const autoCollapsedOnce = ref<Set<number>>(new Set());
+
 function autoCollapseCompleted(msList: Milestone[]) {
   for (const ms of msList) {
+    if (autoCollapsedOnce.value.has(ms.id)) continue;
+    autoCollapsedOnce.value.add(ms.id);
+    // Fully done and non-empty: start collapsed. A finished milestone is
+    // history, and the board is for what's live.
     if (ms.total > 0 && ms.completed === ms.total) {
       collapsedMilestones.value.add(ms.id);
     }
@@ -294,15 +336,45 @@ async function confirmDeleteMilestone() {
   }
 }
 
+// The route's max_limit. Asking for more is clamped server-side, so this is the
+// largest page a single request can return.
+const TASK_PAGE_SIZE = 500;
+
 async function loadTasks() {
   tasksLoading.value = true;
+  tasksError.value = null;
   try {
-    const data = await apiGet<{ notes: NoteItem[]; total: number }>(
-      `/api/projects/${projectId.value}/notes?type=task&limit=100`
-    );
-    tasks.value = data.notes;
+    // PAGE UNTIL COMPLETE. This board groups tasks under their milestone and
+    // shows each milestone's progress beside them, and that progress is counted
+    // SERVER-SIDE over every task. A partial fetch therefore doesn't just hide
+    // rows — it makes the bar disagree with the cards under it, and the
+    // auto-collapse rule (100% done starts collapsed) read as arbitrary.
+    //
+    // The original `limit=100` with no second page shipped the day this view was
+    // written, when the project had a couple of dozen tasks. At 166 it was
+    // dropping 66 — the least-recently-updated, so mostly done tasks in
+    // completed milestones, which is exactly where the mismatch is least
+    // visible and most confusing.
+    const url = (offset: number) =>
+      `/api/projects/${projectId.value}/notes?type=task` +
+      `&limit=${TASK_PAGE_SIZE}&offset=${offset}`;
+
+    const first = await apiGet<{ notes: NoteItem[]; total: number }>(url(0));
+    const all = [...first.notes];
+    while (all.length < first.total) {
+      const next = await apiGet<{ notes: NoteItem[]; total: number }>(url(all.length));
+      // A page that returns nothing while `total` still says there is more means
+      // the two disagree. Stop rather than loop forever; showing what we have
+      // beats hanging the board.
+      if (!next.notes.length) break;
+      all.push(...next.notes);
+    }
+    tasks.value = all;
   } catch {
-    // Silently fail — tasks just won't show
+    // Say so. This used to swallow the error and leave an empty board, which is
+    // indistinguishable from a project with no tasks — the same "hidden with no
+    // indicator" failure as the truncation above, one layer up.
+    tasksError.value = "Could not load tasks. Refresh to try again.";
   } finally {
     tasksLoading.value = false;
   }
@@ -587,6 +659,7 @@ async function confirmDelete() {
               <div class="skel-row skel-row--short"></div>
               <div class="skel-row"></div>
             </div>
+            <p v-else-if="tasksError" class="tasks-error">{{ tasksError }}</p>
             <template v-else>
               <div class="milestone-actions">
                 <button v-if="!showNewMilestone" class="btn-ghost btn-inline btn-add-milestone" @click="showNewMilestone = true">
@@ -667,12 +740,21 @@ async function confirmDelete() {
                       <button class="btn-primary" :disabled="savingPlan" @click="commitEditPlan(group.milestone)">Save plan</button>
                     </div>
                   </template>
-                  <div
-                    v-else
-                    class="ms-plan-rendered markdown-body"
-                    @click="startEditPlan(group.milestone.id, group.milestone.body)"
-                    v-html="renderMarkdown(group.milestone.body || '')"
-                  ></div>
+                  <template v-else>
+                    <div
+                      :class="['ms-plan-rendered', 'markdown-body',
+                               { 'ms-plan-clamped': isPlanClamped(group.milestone) }]"
+                      @click="startEditPlan(group.milestone.id, group.milestone.body)"
+                      v-html="renderMarkdown(group.milestone.body || '')"
+                    ></div>
+                    <button
+                      v-if="isPlanLong(group.milestone)"
+                      class="btn-text ms-plan-toggle"
+                      @click.stop="togglePlanExpanded(group.milestone.id)"
+                    >
+                      {{ expandedPlans.has(group.milestone.id) ? "Show less" : "Show more" }}
+                    </button>
+                  </template>
                 </div>
 
                 <div v-if="!group.milestone || !collapsedMilestones.has(group.milestone.id)" class="kanban">
@@ -1114,6 +1196,31 @@ async function confirmDelete() {
 }
 .ms-plan-rendered { font-size: 0.85rem; color: var(--color-text); cursor: text; }
 .ms-plan-rendered:hover { background: color-mix(in srgb, var(--color-primary) 4%, transparent); }
+
+/* max-height rather than -webkit-line-clamp: the body is rendered markdown, so
+   it holds headings, lists and tables. line-clamp counts lines inside ONE inline
+   formatting context and behaves unpredictably once block children are involved,
+   which is most plans. */
+.ms-plan-clamped {
+  max-height: 6.5rem;
+  overflow: hidden;
+  position: relative;
+}
+/* Fades into the plan block's own background, which is a tint over the card —
+   restate it here rather than approximating, or the fade shows as a grey band. */
+.ms-plan-clamped::after {
+  content: "";
+  position: absolute;
+  inset: auto 0 0 0;
+  height: 2.25rem;
+  background: linear-gradient(
+    to bottom,
+    transparent,
+    color-mix(in srgb, var(--color-primary) 3%, var(--color-bg-card))
+  );
+  pointer-events: none;   /* the text under the fade stays clickable to edit */
+}
+.ms-plan-toggle { padding-left: 0; margin-top: 0.15rem; }
 .ms-plan-editor {
   width: 100%;
   font-family: var(--font-mono);
@@ -1359,6 +1466,10 @@ async function confirmDelete() {
 .note-date { font-size: 0.75rem; color: var(--color-text-muted); flex-shrink: 0; }
 
 .empty-msg { color: var(--color-text-muted); font-size: 0.875rem; text-align: center; padding: 1rem; }
+/* Deliberately NOT styled like .empty-msg: "no tasks" and "the tasks did not
+   load" look identical to a user, and conflating them is what let a silent
+   failure read as an empty project. */
+.tasks-error { color: var(--color-danger); font-size: 0.875rem; padding: 1rem; text-align: center; }
 
 /* ── Modal ───────────────────────────────────────────────────── */
 .modal-overlay {