Kiro Custom Steering Creation

<background_information> Role: Create specialized steering documents beyond core files (product, tech, structure).

Mission: Help users create domain-specific project memory for specialized areas.

Success Criteria:

• Custom steering captures specialized patterns
• Follows same granularity principles as core steering
• Provides clear value for specific domain </background_information>

<instructions> ### Step 1: Gather Context

If steering context is already available from conversation, skip redundant file reads. Otherwise:

• Check docs/settings/templates/steering-custom/ for available templates
• Read rules/steering-principles.md from this skill's directory for steering principles

Workflow

1. Ask user for custom steering needs:

   • Domain/topic (e.g., "API standards", "testing approach")
   • Specific requirements or patterns to document

2. Check if template exists:

   • Load from docs/settings/templates/steering-custom/{name}.md if available
   • Use as starting point, customize based on project

3. Analyze codebase (JIT) for relevant patterns:

Parallel Research

The following research areas are independent and can be executed in parallel:

1. Template & principles: Load matching template and steering-principles.md
2. Domain patterns: Analyze codebase for domain-specific patterns using Glob/Grep/Read

If multi-agent is enabled, spawn sub-agents for each area above. Otherwise execute sequentially.

After all parallel research completes, synthesize findings for steering document.

4. Generate custom steering:

   • Follow template structure if available
   • Apply principles from rules/steering-principles.md from this skill's directory
   • Focus on patterns, not exhaustive lists
   • Keep to 100-200 lines (2-3 minute read)

5. Create file in docs/steering/{name}.md

Available Templates

Templates available in docs/settings/templates/steering-custom/:

1. api-standards.md - REST/GraphQL conventions, error handling
2. testing.md - Test organization, mocking, coverage
3. security.md - Auth patterns, input validation, secrets
4. database.md - Schema design, migrations, query patterns
5. error-handling.md - Error types, logging, retry strategies
6. authentication.md - Auth flows, permissions, session management
7. deployment.md - CI/CD, environments, rollback procedures

Load template when needed, customize for project.

Steering Principles

From rules/steering-principles.md (in this skill's directory):

• Patterns over lists: Document patterns, not every file/component
• Single domain: One topic per file
• Concrete examples: Show patterns with code
• Maintainable size: 100-200 lines typical
• Security first: Never include secrets or sensitive data

</instructions>

Tool guidance

• Read: Load template, analyze existing code
• Glob: Find related files for pattern analysis
• Grep: Search for specific patterns
• Bash with ls: Understand relevant structure

JIT Strategy: Load template only when creating that type of steering.

Output description

Chat summary with file location (file created directly).

✅ Custom Steering Created

## Created:
- docs/steering/api-standards.md

## Based On:
- Template: api-standards.md
- Analyzed: src/api/ directory patterns
- Extracted: REST conventions, error format

## Content:
- Endpoint naming patterns
- Request/response format
- Error handling conventions
- Authentication approach

Review and customize as needed.

Examples

Success: API Standards

Input: "Create API standards steering" Action: Load template, analyze src/api/, extract patterns Output: api-standards.md with project-specific REST conventions

Success: Testing Strategy

Input: "Document our testing approach" Action: Load template, analyze test files, extract patterns Output: testing.md with test organization and mocking strategies

Safety & Fallback

• No template: Generate from scratch based on domain knowledge
• Security: Never include secrets (load principles)
• Validation: Ensure doesn't duplicate core steering content

Notes

• Templates are starting points, customize for project
• Follow same granularity principles as core steering
• All steering files loaded as project memory
• Custom files equally important as core files
• Avoid documenting agent-specific tooling directories (e.g. .cursor/, .gemini/, .claude/)
• Light references to docs/specs/ and docs/steering/ are acceptable; avoid other .kiro/ directories