Multiple auto layout components within an auto layout parent while everything being flexible in height

Hopefully I can explain this clearly but I’m having issues with the sizing of my auto-layout components. I’m trying to achieve a horizontal card roll similar to how you’d see in a blog layout but I need them all to be equal height based on the amount of content within them.

After doing much trial-n-error, I was able to make all the cards equal height if the content is SHORTER than the other cards but as soon as the content get’s LONGER, the card doesn’t grow in height. Instead, the content is pushed outside the wrapper. Here’s an example:

Content longer:

I as able to make the wrapper fit all the content by switching the height from “fill” to “hug” but unfortunately, all the other cards are now hugging so they’re not equal in height anymore.

Once I change the wrapper back to “fill” so all the cards are equal height, the parent container changes it’s height to “fixed”. At this point, all the cards are now overly long instead of matching the length of the content. If I change the parent wrapper’s height to “fill”, nothing happens. If I change it to “hug” then all of a sudden the child elements (cards) all have fixed heights. Once I change the height of the child elements back to “hug” or “fill” then the parent container changes the height back to “fixed”.

So I’m wondering if there’s a way to have both the parent AND child elements have flexible heights instead of one switching to “fixed” based on the other’s setting??

Hopefully I explained this well enough.

I think I was able to recreate what you are aiming for:

Make the title and body copy of the card sit inside a vertically-growing auto layout frame with a fixed width and its height set to “hug”. The card can then “fill” the height of the parent container, while the parent container can “hug” the height of the tallest card. It’s a little difficult to explain, so I attached an image below demonstrating the dimensions / auto-layouts I have set up.

red = parent container
blue = card
green = card content

Ok cool! I’ll give this a try and let you know if it worked. Thanks! I been trying to wrap my head around this for the longest of time haha.

@Simon_Steer’s solution is solid, but I also wanted to share an alternative that this reminded me of: @Mr.Biscuit’s Config 2021 demo about bi-directional hugging! The main difference that I see between this and Simon’s fix is that Mr. Biscuit’s uses 1 less frame.

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Wow thank you Alice for mentioning me, the last example in this file does exactly what the op says, and it’s an evolution of bidirectional hugging Pro Layout Panel Playground | Figma Community

For tldr here’s a video PPL video 3 - YouTube