diff --git a/docs/ARCHITECTURE.md b/docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
index 048e429d..e0f3d2d6 100644
--- a/docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
+++ b/docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
@@ -391,7 +391,9 @@ Status notifications -> SessionStatus updated (idle -> awaiting_approval)
 Story notifications  -> StoryOverlay opens with file content
     |
     v
-Renderer draws attention border / story overlay
+Renderer draws terminal content and borders; the cwd-bar UI component reasserts
+the focused border after its label so attention tiles keep the same focus-border
+z-order as ordinary tiles.
 ```
 
 ### External MCP Spawn Path
@@ -493,13 +495,13 @@ Rotate: rename active file to architect-<UTC timestamp>.log and continue in new
 | `session/pty_reader.zig` | Background thread that `poll(2)`s spawned sessions' PTY master fds and drains readable ones into per-session SPSC ring buffers; registry with retire handshake so teardown can safely close fds | `PtyReader`, `PtyOutputBuffer`, `start()`, `register()`, `retire()` | std (poll, thread) |
 | `wake_pipe.zig` | Non-blocking self-pipe used to wake blocking background-thread polls for PTY registry changes and shutdown | `WakePipe`, `poll_error_backoff_ns` | `posix_util`, std (poll) |
 | `session/*` (shell, pty, vt_stream, cwd) | Shell spawning, PTY abstraction, VT parsing, working directory detection | `spawn()`, `Pty`, `VtStream.processBytes()`, `getCwd()` | std (posix), ghostty-vt |
-| `render/renderer.zig` | Scene rendering: terminals, borders, animations, terminal scrollbar painting, first-launch onboarding hint | `render()`, `RenderCache`, per-session texture management | `font`, `font_cache`, `gfx/*`, `anim/easing`, `app/app_state`, `ui/components/scrollbar`, `c` |
+| `render/renderer.zig` | Scene rendering: terminals, borders, animations, terminal scrollbar painting, first-launch onboarding hint. Exposes the shared focused-border primitive used by the cwd-bar UI component to preserve border z-order after the bar label | `render()`, `RenderCache`, `renderFocusBorder()`, per-session texture management | `font`, `font_cache`, `gfx/*`, `anim/easing`, `app/app_state`, `ui/components/scrollbar`, `c` |
 | `font.zig` + `font_cache.zig` | Font rendering, HarfBuzz shaping, glyph LRU cache, shared font cache | `Font`, `openFont()`, `renderGlyph()`, `FontCache`, `getOrCreate()` | `font_paths`, `c` (SDL3_ttf) |
 | `gfx/*` (box_drawing, primitives) | Procedural box-drawing characters (U+2500-U+257F), rounded/thick border helpers, bezier arrow rendering | `renderBoxDrawing()`, `drawRoundedRect()`, `drawThickBorder()`, `fillRoundedRect()`, `renderBezierArrow()` | `c` |
 | `env.zig`, `clock.zig`, `proc.zig` | Process-environment access, I/O-aware timestamps/sleep, and I/O-aware process execution helpers | `get()`, `now*()`, `sleepNanos()`, `run()`, `spawnDetached()` | std |
 | `ui/root.zig` | UI component registry, z-index dispatch, action drain | `UiRoot`, `register()`, `handleEvent()`, `update()`, `render()`, `needsFrame()` | `ui/component`, `ui/types` |
 | `ui/component.zig` | UI component vtable interface | `UiComponent`, `VTable` (handleEvent, update, render, hitTest, wantsFrame, deinit) | `ui/types`, `c` |
-| `ui/types.zig` | Shared UI type definitions | `UiHost`, `UiAction`, `UiActionQueue`, `UiAssets`, `SessionUiInfo` | `app/app_state`, `colors`, `font`, `geom` |
+| `ui/types.zig` | Shared UI type definitions, including per-session attention state needed by grid chrome | `UiHost`, `UiAction`, `UiActionQueue`, `UiAssets`, `SessionUiInfo` | `app/app_state`, `colors`, `font`, `geom` |
 | `ui/session_view_state.zig` | Per-session UI interaction state (selection, scroll, hover, agent status, scrollbar fade/drag state) | `SessionViewState` (selection, scroll offset, hover, status, terminal scrollbar state) | `app/app_state` (for `SessionStatus` enum), `ui/components/scrollbar` |
 | `ui/first_frame_guard.zig` | Idle throttle bypass for visible state transitions | `FirstFrameGuard`, `markTransition()`, `markDrawn()`, `wantsFrame()` | (none) |
 | `ui/text_edit.zig` | Shared text-field model used by every input (worktree name, recent-folder/reader/story search, diff comments). `TextInput` owns the buffer, caret blink phase and select-all flag, and handles Backspace (⌘ clears / ⌥ word / plain one UTF-8 codepoint), ⌘A, ⌘C and ⌘V. Append-only by design: the caret sits at the end and the only selection is "everything". Components keep layout and rendering, reading `caretVisible()`/`select_all` for the visuals. | `TextInput`, `handleKey()`, `insert()`, `caretVisible()`, `touch()`, `DeleteScope`, `scopeFromMods()`, `backspace()`, `isSingleLineChar()`, `name_separators`, `path_separators`, `prose_separators` | `c` (keycodes, clipboard) |
diff --git a/src/app/ui_host.zig b/src/app/ui_host.zig
index 41329764..7f560b8c 100644
--- a/src/app/ui_host.zig
+++ b/src/app/ui_host.zig
@@ -71,6 +71,7 @@ pub fn makeUiHost(
         buffer[i] = .{
             .dead = session.dead,
             .spawned = session.spawned,
+            .attention = if (i < views.len) views[i].attention else false,
             .cwd_path = session.cwd_path,
             .cwd_basename = session.cwd_basename,
             .session_status = if (i < views.len) views[i].status else .idle,
diff --git a/src/render/renderer.zig b/src/render/renderer.zig
index 3647cf0f..6483d5d7 100644
--- a/src/render/renderer.zig
+++ b/src/render/renderer.zig
@@ -1011,6 +1011,56 @@ test "grid active screen rendering follows cursor row" {
     try std.testing.expectEqual(@as(usize, 0), activeScreenRowOffset(50, 0, 49, true, false));
 }
 
+/// Return the geometry of a focused border, including the attention inset.
+fn focusBorderRect(rect: Rect, has_attention: bool, border_thickness: c_int) ?Rect {
+    const inset: c_int = if (has_attention) border_thickness else 0;
+    var focus_rect = rect;
+    focus_rect.x += inset;
+    focus_rect.y += inset;
+    focus_rect.w -= inset * 2;
+    focus_rect.h -= inset * 2;
+    if (focus_rect.w <= 0 or focus_rect.h <= 0) return null;
+    return focus_rect;
+}
+
+/// Draw the focused grid border. Attention borders inset the focus border, so
+/// the cwd bar redraws this after its label to preserve the intended z-order.
+pub fn renderFocusBorder(
+    renderer: *c.SDL_Renderer,
+    rect: Rect,
+    has_attention: bool,
+    theme: *const colors.Theme,
+    ui_scale: f32,
+    draw_fill: bool,
+) void {
+    const focus_blue = theme.palette[12];
+    const border_thickness: c_int = dpi.scale(attention_thickness, ui_scale);
+    const focus_rect = focusBorderRect(rect, has_attention, border_thickness) orelse return;
+
+    _ = c.SDL_SetRenderDrawBlendMode(renderer, c.SDL_BLENDMODE_BLEND);
+    if (draw_fill and !has_attention) {
+        _ = c.SDL_SetRenderDrawColor(renderer, focus_blue.r, focus_blue.g, focus_blue.b, 38);
+        _ = c.SDL_RenderFillRect(renderer, &c.SDL_FRect{
+            .x = @floatFromInt(focus_rect.x),
+            .y = @floatFromInt(focus_rect.y),
+            .w = @floatFromInt(focus_rect.w),
+            .h = @floatFromInt(focus_rect.h),
+        });
+    }
+    primitives.drawThickBorder(renderer, focus_rect, border_thickness, dpi.scale(6, ui_scale), focus_blue);
+}
+
+test "focused border is inset only for attention tiles" {
+    const rect = Rect{ .x = 10, .y = 20, .w = 100, .h = 80 };
+
+    try std.testing.expectEqual(rect, focusBorderRect(rect, false, 6).?);
+    try std.testing.expectEqual(
+        Rect{ .x = 16, .y = 26, .w = 88, .h = 68 },
+        focusBorderRect(rect, true, 6).?,
+    );
+    try std.testing.expectEqual(@as(?Rect, null), focusBorderRect(Rect{ .x = 0, .y = 0, .w = 12, .h = 12 }, true, 6));
+}
+
 fn renderSessionOverlays(
     renderer: *c.SDL_Renderer,
     session: *SessionState,
@@ -1038,28 +1088,7 @@ fn renderSessionOverlays(
             primitives.drawThickBorder(renderer, rect, border_thickness, border_radius, base_border);
         }
 
-        if (is_focused) {
-            const focus_blue = theme.palette[12];
-            const inset: c_int = if (has_attention) border_thickness else 0;
-            var focus_rect = rect;
-            focus_rect.x += inset;
-            focus_rect.y += inset;
-            focus_rect.w -= inset * 2;
-            focus_rect.h -= inset * 2;
-            if (focus_rect.w > 0 and focus_rect.h > 0) {
-                _ = c.SDL_SetRenderDrawBlendMode(renderer, c.SDL_BLENDMODE_BLEND);
-                if (!has_attention) {
-                    _ = c.SDL_SetRenderDrawColor(renderer, focus_blue.r, focus_blue.g, focus_blue.b, 38);
-                    _ = c.SDL_RenderFillRect(renderer, &c.SDL_FRect{
-                        .x = @floatFromInt(focus_rect.x),
-                        .y = @floatFromInt(focus_rect.y),
-                        .w = @floatFromInt(focus_rect.w),
-                        .h = @floatFromInt(focus_rect.h),
-                    });
-                }
-                primitives.drawThickBorder(renderer, focus_rect, border_thickness, border_radius, focus_blue);
-            }
-        }
+        if (is_focused) renderFocusBorder(renderer, rect, has_attention, theme, ui_scale, true);
     }
 
     if (has_attention) {
diff --git a/src/ui/components/cwd_bar.zig b/src/ui/components/cwd_bar.zig
index b11d89ab..e858445e 100644
--- a/src/ui/components/cwd_bar.zig
+++ b/src/ui/components/cwd_bar.zig
@@ -233,6 +233,9 @@ pub const CwdBarComponent = struct {
                 .h = host.cell_h,
             };
             self.renderCwdBar(renderer, i, info, cell_rect, host, cache, i);
+            if (i == host.focused_session) {
+                renderer_mod.renderFocusBorder(renderer, cell_rect, info.attention, host.theme, host.ui_scale, false);
+            }
         }
     }
 
diff --git a/src/ui/types.zig b/src/ui/types.zig
index 6010d733..8a3b130d 100644
--- a/src/ui/types.zig
+++ b/src/ui/types.zig
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ const geom = @import("../geom.zig");
 pub const SessionUiInfo = struct {
     dead: bool,
     spawned: bool,
+    attention: bool = false,
     cwd_path: ?[]const u8 = null,
     cwd_basename: ?[]const u8 = null,
     session_status: app_state.SessionStatus = .idle,