This article is a machine translation of the contents of the following URL, which I wrote in Japanese:
https://qiita.com/Nana_777/items/4d05e92622f928481e29
Introduction
Agent Skills was implemented in Kiro's IDE on February 5, 2026.
At first glance, the functionality appears to be quite similar to the previously available Steering feature.
This article explains how to use AgentSkills.
Conclusion *Author's subjective opinion
- AgentSkills and Steering basically accomplish the same thing, but they have different design philosophies and usage.
- My personal approach to using AgentSkills and Steering
- Workspace-specific rules and Kiro behavior rules should be defined in Steering.
- Examples: Translating Kiro responses to Japanese, coding conventions, project structure, etc.
- Organizational or team rules that span workspaces and operations that require specialized knowledge should be defined in Skills.
- Examples: Database operations (backup, restore, connection, migration procedures), deployment procedures, tricks, etc.
- While specialized knowledge can easily be confused with MCP, it seems best to define team-specific procedures in Skills.
- Unlike MCP, it seems convenient to script small tricks and define them as Skills.
- There are many useful Skills shared on GitHub, making it easy to import and share Skills.
↓ An example of how to use Steering and AgentSkills
Think of Steering as a carpentry rulebook (defining which tools to use and how to ensure safety), while AgentSkills are like defining which tools to use in which steps when making a chair.
Agent Skills
Portable instruction packages based on the open AgentSkills standard.
By defining specific task steps as Skills, rather than leaving it up to the AI to guess, you can ensure the task is performed exactly as defined.
For a detailed explanation, see the link below.
↓ Kiro documentation page
↓ Open AgentSkills documentation
How to Create Agent Skills
Importing Already Created Skills
To import already created skills, you can do so from the Kiro IDE.
Select the Kiro icon from the left menu of Kiro and select the "+" sign to the right of the "AGENT STEERING & SKILLS" item (update your IDE if necessary).
After selecting the "+" sign, a menu will open where you can select where to import your skills.
The differences between "Skills agent skills" and "Global agent skills" displayed in the initial menu are as follows:
- Skills agent skills: Skills applied to the current workspace
- Saved in [Workspace path]/.kiro/skills/
- Global agent skills: Skills applied to all workspaces on the user's PC
- Saved in ~/.kiro/skills/
- *For example, "~" is "C:\Users[Username]\"
You can import skills by retrieving the URL of the skills published on GitHub, or by selecting the file from your local PC.
Public Skills
Several skills are publicly available on GitHub, and can be imported into Kiro using the steps described above.
↓ Skills Sample
https://github.com/anthropics/skills/tree/main/skills
Try Importing Skills from GitHub
In this example, we'll import the following PDF manipulation skills.
https://github.com/anthropics/skills/tree/main/skills/pdf
As shown in the previous steps, import by specifying the GitHub URL.
After importing, a set of files managed on GitHub was downloaded to your local PC.
Creating a New Skill
As with Steering, create a new skill using an .md file.
You can create it manually or by chatting with Kiro.
Skills Storage Location
As mentioned above, the scope of application of the content changes depending on the file's storage location.
Use the appropriate method depending on the content of the skill and the scope of its application.
- Skills applied to the current workspace: Save to [Workspace Path]/.kiro/skills/
- Skills applied to all workspaces on the user's PC: Save to ~/.kiro/skills/
:::note warn
Caution! The Kiro IDE will not recognize md files placed directly under the skills folder.
Manage them in the same hierarchy as skills imported from GitHub: .kiro/skills/[Skill Name]/SKILL.md.
Placing md files directly under skills will not display them in the IDE.
:::
When Skills are Invoked
Controlled by Description
Kiro's Steering uses "inclusion" to control whether the skill is always applied, applied by file type, or manually applied.
Skills are controlled by the "description" entry.
The Skills I imported from GitHub earlier said, "Use this skill if a user mentions or requests the creation of a .pdf file."
Let's test it.
Creating a text file with PDF Skills
I asked Kiro to "create a .txt file containing a brief description of Kiro."
As a result, it created a text file without using any Skills.
Converting a text file to PDF with PDF Skills
I asked Kiro to "convert a .txt file containing a brief description of Kiro to PDF."
As a result, the PDF Skills were invoked and the conversion to PDF was performed.
When asked how they used Skills, they provided the following response:
From their response, we can see that they used Skills and even executed the appropriate scripts within Skills.
Conclusion
Kiro's Steering and Skills have very similar functions and definitions, making it difficult to distinguish between them at first glance.
When chatting with Kiro, I was told that they are functionally identical. In fact, if you use Steering and Skills in a creative way, you may be able to achieve similar results.
However, as noted in the Kiro documentation, Steering defines workspace (project)-specific context and criteria, while Skills can be used as a reusable workflow independent of workspaces, potentially leading to more efficient development and systematic product management.
Please give Skills a try with Kiro!
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