This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Zaheer Ahmed
How I learned that sometimes, the problem isn't your layout, it's your assumptions.
Hey everyone! đź‘‹
I'm Zaheer Ahmed, a web application developer just starting to share my journey. For my first post, I wanted to talk about a problem that had me banging my head against the keyboard for an embarrassingly long time. I'm sharing this in the hope that I can save another new developer from the same frustration.
We've all been there: you're building a component, everything looks perfect in your mind, but the browser has other plans.
The Scene of the Crime
I was building a simple, responsive card grid. You know the one—a bunch of cards that wrap nicely into rows. I reached for my trusty CSS Grid, and it felt like the right tool for the job.
Here was my initial, perfectly logical code:
.card-grid {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, minmax(250px, 1fr));
}
Simple, right? It should create columns that are at least 250px wide, and they should all be equal width (1fr). But I noticed something weird. On certain viewport widths, there was a larger-than-expected gap on the right side of the grid. It looked... unbalanced.
https://via.placeholder.com/600x200?text=Uneven+Gaps+Here!
My first thought? "Ah, must be a margin or padding issue." I spent hours using the browser's DevTools to inspect every element, looking for rogue margins. I tried margin: 0, padding: 0, and even the nuclear box-sizing: border-box on everything. Nothing worked.
The "Aha!" Moment in the DevTools
The breakthrough came when I stopped focusing on the content of the grid and started focusing on the grid container itself. I was resizing my browser window slowly when I saw it.
I changed my code to this:
.card-grid {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, minmax(min(250px, 100%), 1fr));
gap: 1rem;
}
Let's break down the magic: minmax(min(250px, 100%), 1fr)
This is saying:
min(250px, 100%): Use the smaller of either250pxor100%of the grid's width. On large screens,250pxis smaller, so it uses that. But on a small screen, if the grid container is only300pxwide,100%(which is300px) is smaller than250px, so it uses100%.This prevents the browser from having to deal with a large, leftover fragment of space. It ensures the columns are always flush and fill the container beautifully at any size.
https://via.placeholder.com/600x200?text=Perfectly+Flush+Grid!
The result was a perfectly flush, responsive grid without any weird gaps. It was one line of code, but it required a fundamental shift in how I understood the interaction between auto-fit, minmax, and container size.
My Key Takeaway
I learned that when CSS doesn't behave as expected, the solution isn't always to fight it with more CSS. Sometimes, you need to take a step back and really understand what your original instructions are telling the browser to do. The problem wasn't in my styling; it was in my logic.
This small victory taught me more about CSS Grid than any tutorial ever had.
Have you ever been stuck on a CSS problem that had a deceptively simple solution? I'd love to hear your stories in the comments below! Let's learn from each other's mistakes. 🙂
Happy coding!
Zaheer Ahmed
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Zaheer Ahmed
Zaheer Ahmed | Sciencx (2025-11-20T17:36:27+00:00) That One CSS Gap That Tricked Me For a Week (And The Simple Fix). Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/11/20/that-one-css-gap-that-tricked-me-for-a-week-and-the-simple-fix-2/
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