The Interface

Before we get started, let’s get to know Kiro a bit first.

A quick orientation before the build acts: the parts of Kiro you’ll lean on, and where the things you configure live on disk.

The panels

Here’s the main Kiro window. Almost everything you’ll touch in this workshop is one of the panels in that left sidebar.

• The agent panel is the chat box at the bottom. You describe a task and watch the agent work. The Vibe and Spec cards are the two ways to start: chat and iterate, or plan first.
• Specs is where spec-driven requirements, design, and tasks live. Act 3.
• Agent Hooks is where commands fire automatically during the agent’s turn. Act 2.
• Agent Steering & Skills is the project knowledge and reusable workflows the agent loads. Act 1.
• MCP Servers is where external tools connect. Act 2.

That sidebar is the whole workshop in one column. Each section maps to a primitive you’ll configure.

Giving the agent context with #

When you want the agent to look at something specific, type # in the chat and pick it: a file, the terminal, a spec, your steering, an MCP server.

Powers

Kiro bundles MCP servers and skills together as Powers. The Powers panel is a small marketplace: some bundles installed, more available to add. You’ll meet Powers again in Act 2.

The .kiro directory

Everything you configure in Kiro lives under a .kiro/ directory, organized by what it does. You’ll create files in most of these subdirectories over the next three acts:

• Directory.kiro/

  • Directorysteering/

    • …
  • Directoryskills/

    • …
  • Directoryhooks/

    • …
  • Directoryagents/

    • …
  • Directoryspecs/

    • …
  • Directorysettings/

    • …

Subdirectory	What lives there	Covered in
steering/	Project knowledge and conventions the agent should follow	Act 1
skills/	Reusable workflows the agent pulls in on demand	Act 1
hooks/	Commands or prompts that fire at points in the agent’s lifecycle	Act 2
agents/	Custom agent profiles: model, tools, permissions, context	Act 2
specs/	Spec-mode documents (requirements, design, tasks)	Act 3
settings/	Permissions and other configuration	Act 2

Global vs. project, and which one wins

Every one of these exists in two places:

• Project (<your-project>/.kiro/) applies to this repo only. It’s committed with the code, so your whole team gets it.
• Global (~/.kiro/) applies to every project on your machine. It’s your personal setup.

When both define the same thing, like a steering file, skill, or agent with the same name, the project version wins. A project file overrides the global one. The default agent reads from both locations, with the project copy taking precedence.

Note

Each build lesson tells you which subdirectory it uses. When you’re unsure about project vs. global, or what overrides what, this is the page to come back to.