Symbol Instances don't use Containers unless wrapped in a Group or column/row layout generates layout

[SuperGNUS]

If you add a Symbol instance to an art board, it doesn't inject a Container, which it should if there is no layout already wrapped. The symbol has box constraints for this.

When more than one item is on the page a Flexible() is wrapped that generates the constraints for the Symbol.

If you just add a single symbol on the page, no Flexible layout is used. Also if you specify -c stack it won't generate Containers for the symbol instances.

Work around (which should be documented on the wiki, is to Group the symbol by itself will inject a container for the symbol. This should be unnecessary.

Also, the Symbol Master has a top level Container() that is redundant, since the constraints are passed in. Not a big deal, just isn't needed.

[siliconivan]

Just to add some clarity here, and this is completely from my understanding from our Discord chat about this. But the reason why a SymbolInstance needs to be wrapped in a container where no other VisualNode needs to be is because of sizing. In Sketch you can resize a SymbolInstance that's different from the original SymbolMaster. Luckily, @GeniusVentures created a way for Symbols to use LayoutBuilder which allows it to scale based on the parent containers size (I believe).

[SuperGNUS]

This never got done, so it's showing up for Ivan now.

[siliconivan]

I think this changed and should be closed.