While I love the fact that I can reorder items in a smart layout without affecting layer order but to keep things in a good order I think layers inside a group should be rearranged as you reorganize items on the canvas.
Hey @Keviruchis welcome to the Forum, it’s great to have you here and thanks for sharing your feedback about Smart Layout.
I wanted to ask if you can share a bit more details of how this would improve your workflow, if you have a use case or recent project where you missed having this we’d love to know about it!
Many thanks in advance
Yea, So a great example of this is my current design workflow shown in the attached image. Currently I design the site section by section using the smart layout with a background “shape” to provide padding and background color and the content that expands and contracts but when I rearrange the sections in the smart layout column they don’t rearrange in the layers which makes it harder to find the right section layer even if I rename the layers.
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Thanks for sharing this Kevin! This is a great interaction design challenge. Layer order is very straightforward considering our native western language way of reading: left to right, top to bottom and also, when there’s no overlap on layers.
You can also use the Automate Sketch plugin to reverse layer order based, among other options, on X position (top to bottom or bottom to top). The option is available in Automate → Arrange → Order Layers by… → Position X
Now, a bit more detail. Each time you create a new layer, by default it’s created to appear above the current one. On the layer list, this is also represented by this new layer being above any previous layers:
When there’s overlap, this is pretty straightforward. However, when there’s no overlap, it kind of makes more sense to have the visually top layer on canvas also on top on the layer list:
So this is a case where both behaviors make sense, depending the situation and thus, the challenge in solving this and, at the same time, the benefit of the layer list currently not changing order when you move layers on the Canvas.
I’ve added your use case to our documentation about this behavior. Thanks again for sharing 
@Keviruchis I’m confused about your request.
You say you:
- love that you can reorder items in a smart layout w/o affecting layer order
- think layers inside a group should be rearranged as you reorganize items on the canvas
But then in your example, you say:
- when I rearrange the sections in the smart layout column they don’t rearrange in the layers which makes it harder to find the right section layer even if I rename the layers
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but it sounds like you like you’re saying the oppose of what you actually wrote in your originally statement. It sounds like you like that you can rearrange items outside of Smart Layouts without affecting the layer order, but that you believe that when items are rearranged within a Smart Layout, that the layer order should update to match the arrangement.
Regardless, I agree that this behavior is correct, and it doesn’t contradict @dfmedrano 's explanation regarding why layer order ought to remain subjective outside of Smart Layouts.