Kiro Steering Docs vs Skills — When to Use Which
I just spent the evening setting up my blog’s deployment workflow in Kiro, and at the end I had a choice: do I save this as a steering doc or a skill? They both let you give Kiro persistent context, but they work differently and solve different problems.
Here’s how I think about it after going through the decision myself.
What steering docs do
A steering doc is a markdown file that lives in
.kiro/steering/. It’s essentially a note you leave for future Kiro conversations: “here’s how this project works, here’s what to keep in mind.”