Agent Skills

Skills are portable instruction packages that extend what Kiro knows how to do. Each skill contains instructions for a specific workflow, whether that's reviewing pull requests, deploying infrastructure, or following your team's coding standards.

Skills follow the open Agent Skills standard, making them shareable across tools and teams.

When you start a chat session, Kiro discovers available skills by reading their names and descriptions. Skills can activate in two ways:

• Automatically: Kiro matches your request against skill descriptions and loads the relevant skill.
• As slash commands: Type / followed by the skill name to invoke it directly. For example, a skill named pr-review becomes the /pr-review slash command.

> Review this PR for security issues

I'll review the PR using the security checklist...

> /pr-review

I'll review the PR using the security checklist...

To see what skills are available in your current session, use the /context show command or ask Kiro directly:

> /context show

Skills can be stored in two places:

When skills share the same name, workspace skills take priority over global skills.

The default agent automatically loads skills from both locations. No configuration required.

Custom agents don't load skills by default. You need to explicitly add them to the agent's resources field:

{
  "name": "my-agent",
  "resources": [
    "skill://.kiro/skills/*/SKILL.md",
    "skill://~/.kiro/skills/*/SKILL.md"
  ]
}

The skill:// URI scheme supports specific paths, glob patterns, and home directory expansion.

A skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file:

pr-review/
├── SKILL.md           # Required
└── references/        # Optional
    └── checklist.md

The file starts with YAML frontmatter followed by markdown instructions:

---
name: pr-review
description: Review pull requests for code quality, security issues, and test coverage. Use when reviewing PRs or preparing code for review.
---

## Review checklist

When reviewing a pull request:

1. Check for vulnerabilities, injection risks, exposed secrets
2. Verify edge cases and failure modes are handled
3. Confirm new code has appropriate tests
4. Ensure variables and functions have clear names

## Common issues to flag

- Hardcoded credentials or API keys
- Missing input validation
- Unhandled promise rejections
- Console.log statements left in production code

The description field determines when Kiro activates the skill. Include specific keywords and actions that match how you'd phrase requests.

For extensive documentation, use a references/ folder:

aws-deployment/
├── SKILL.md
└── references/
    ├── ecs-guide.md
    └── troubleshooting.md

Reference the files in your SKILL.md:

For ECS deployments, follow the guide in `references/ecs-guide.md`.

Kiro loads reference files only when the instructions direct it to.

A CDK deployment skill:

cdk-deploy/
├── SKILL.md
└── references/
    └── stack-patterns.md

SKILL.md:

---
name: cdk-deploy
description: Deploy AWS CDK stacks with best practices. Use when deploying infrastructure, running cdk deploy, or troubleshooting CDK issues.
---

## Deployment workflow

1. Run `cdk synth` to validate templates before deploying
2. Use `cdk diff` to preview what will change
3. Run `cdk deploy` and review IAM changes

## Pre-deployment checks

- Verify AWS credentials are configured for the target account
- Check that the CDK version matches the project's requirements
- Review `references/stack-patterns.md` for environment-specific patterns

## Rollback procedure

If deployment fails:
1. Check CloudFormation console for the specific error
2. Run `cdk destroy` only if the stack is in a failed state
3. Fix the issue and redeploy

Usage:

> Deploy my CDK stack to staging

I'll follow the deployment workflow. First, let me synthesize the templates...

Write precise descriptions. The description determines when Kiro activates the skill:

• Good: Review pull requests for security vulnerabilities and test coverage. Use when reviewing PRs or preparing code for review.
• Vague: Helps with code review

Keep SKILL.md actionable. Put detailed reference material in references/ files.

Choose the right scope. Use global skills for personal workflows you use everywhere. Use workspace skills for team procedures and project-specific conventions.

Version control workspace skills. Commit .kiro/skills/ to your repository so the team shares the same workflows.

• Slash commands: Skill-based slash commands and all other slash commands
• Steering: Project-specific context and conventions
• Custom Agents: Agent configuration and resources
• Agent Skills specification: Full format details