ai-util-kiro-skill

name	ai-util-kiro-skill
description	Migrate Claude Code skills (.claude/skills/*/SKILL.md) to Kiro skills (.kiro/skills/*/SKILL.md). Invoke ONLY via the /ai-util-kiro-skill slash command. Do not activate from intent, keywords, or near-synonyms — slash incantation is required.
effort	medium

Kiro Skill Migration

You migrate Claude Code skills (.claude/skills/*/SKILL.md) to Kiro skills (.kiro/skills/*/SKILL.md). Both formats follow the open Agent Skills standard — the migration is primarily frontmatter cleanup, description enhancement, and cross-reference rewriting.

User Input

$ARGUMENTS

Consider any user input above to determine scope (specific skill, directory, or all skills).

Background

Claude Code skills and Kiro skills both follow the Agent Skills standard (agentskills.io). They share the same SKILL.md format with YAML frontmatter. The key differences are:

Aspect	Claude Code Skill	Kiro Skill
Location	.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md	.kiro/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
name: frontmatter	Required	Required (same)
model: frontmatter	Optional (opus/sonnet)	Not supported (add body note)
description:	Trigger/anti-trigger phrases	Clean description + activation keywords
$ARGUMENTS	Supported	Supported (confirmed working)
references/	Supported	Supported (same)
Cross-references	/skill-name	skill-name (plain text)
Invocation	/skill-name args	Auto-activation by description match or /skill-name args

Important: Kiro prompts (.kiro/prompts/*.md) do NOT support $ARGUMENTS. Always migrate to .kiro/skills/, never to .kiro/prompts/.

Step 1: Determine Scope

Parse the user input to determine what to migrate:

• Specific skill: User names a skill (e.g., "migrate ai-create") — migrate just that one
• Directory of skills: User points to a .claude/skills/ directory — migrate all skills in it
• All project skills: User says "migrate all" or doesn't specify — find all .claude/skills/*/SKILL.md files in the project

If no skills are found, tell the user and stop.

List the skills that will be migrated and confirm with the user before proceeding.

Step 2: Read Source Skills

For each skill to migrate, read the full SKILL.md file. Extract:

1. Frontmatter fields: name, description, model, and any others
2. Body content: Everything after the frontmatter closing ---
3. Cross-references: All /skill-name patterns in the body (e.g., /ai-init, /ai-create)
4. Model preference: Note which skills use non-default models (e.g., ``)
5. Bundled directories: Check for references/ and scripts/ directories alongside the SKILL.md

Step 3: Transform Each Skill

Apply these transformations to produce a Kiro skill file:

3a. Frontmatter Transformation

Keep name: — Kiro skills require it (same field as Claude Code).

Remove model: — Kiro handles model selection at the agent level, not per-skill. If a skill has model: that differs from the project default, add a note in the body text near the top: "> Note: This skill produces best results with the [model name] model."

Simplify and enhance the description: field:

• Keep the first 1-2 sentences that describe what the skill does
• Strip trigger phrases ("Use this skill when the user says...")
• Strip anti-trigger phrases ("Do NOT use for...")
• Append activation keywords: "Use when [2-3 imperative/action phrases matching user intent]."
• Kiro auto-activates skills by matching user requests against descriptions, so these keywords improve activation reliability

Remove these fields if present (not part of the Agent Skills standard for Kiro):

• handoffs: — convert to body text "Next steps" guidance instead
• argument-hint: — Claude Code specific
• disable-model-invocation: — Claude Code specific
• user-invocable: — Claude Code specific
• context: — Claude Code specific (subagent execution)
• effort: — Claude Code specific
• hooks: — Claude Code specific
• paths: — Claude Code specific

Example transformation:

Before (Claude Code):

---
name: ai-init
description: "Initialize or refine unified project context (.context/README.md). Use
  when the user says 'initialize context', 'set up context', 'start a project', 'ai init',
  'init', 'refine context', or wants to create or improve .context/ for AI-assisted
  implementation and document generation. Do NOT use for creating working folders
  (/ai-create) or writing agent context docs (/ai-context)."

---

After (Kiro):

---
name: ai-init
description: "Initialize or refine unified project context (.context/README.md). Use
  when setting up a project, initializing context, or refining project context."
---

3b. Body Content Transformation

ultrathink — Cross-reference rewriting must handle multiple reference formats (slash-command mentions, prose descriptions, conditional triggers) and determine whether each reference has a Kiro equivalent, needs removal, or needs a footnote. Missing a reference produces broken skill instructions.

Replace cross-references: Find all /skill-name references in the body and replace with plain skill-name:

• /ai-init becomes ai-init
• /ai-create "description" becomes ai-create
• Use a pattern match for /ai-code-, /ai-doc-, and /ai-util- prefixes (or whatever prefixes exist in the project)
• Be careful not to replace file paths like /src/utils/ or /api/v1/ — only replace references that match known skill names

Convert handoffs: to body text: If the source had handoffs: in frontmatter, or if the skill references next steps, ensure the body's closing section includes plain-text next-step guidance. Example:

Next steps:
  ai-research <feature-name>  — research the codebase for this feature
  ai-plan <feature-name>      — create an implementation plan

Preserve everything else: The body content (instructions, steps, templates, examples) is platform-agnostic and should transfer unchanged. Keep $ARGUMENTS usage as-is — it works in Kiro skills.

3c. Model Preference Handling

If a skill has a model: field that differs from the project default:

• Add a note near the top of the body: "> Note: This skill produces best results with the [model name] model."
• This is informational — Kiro users configure model at the agent level

Step 4: Write Output Files

1. Create the .kiro/skills/ directory if it doesn't exist
2. For each skill, create .kiro/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md
   • mkdir -p .kiro/skills/<skill-name>/
   • Write the transformed content to .kiro/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md
3. If the source skill has a references/ directory, copy it to .kiro/skills/<skill-name>/references/
4. If the source skill has a scripts/ directory, copy it to .kiro/skills/<skill-name>/scripts/
5. Inline any shared reference from the sibling ai-skills-reference/ directory. A Claude skill may point at .claude/skills/ai-skills-reference/<file>.md — a directory that ships with every Claude install but that no Kiro install has. Steps 3-4 only copy the skill's own references/, so a citation into the sibling shared directory dangles after migration. For each such citation, inline the referenced content directly into the Kiro SKILL.md — once, as an appendix — and rewrite the body to cite the appendix instead of the unreachable .claude/skills/... path. Inlining once (not per-citation) keeps a single copy that cannot drift. Confirm afterward with grep -c '\.claude/skills' .kiro/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md returning 0.
6. Do NOT delete or modify the original Claude Code skill files

Step 4b: Validate Migration Output

After generating each Kiro SKILL.md, verify correctness:

1. Frontmatter check — verify all required Kiro fields are present (name:, description:) and no Claude-only fields remain (model:, effort:, allowed-tools:)
2. Cross-reference integrity — grep the output for any remaining /ai- references that weren't rewritten to plain names
3. Content preservation — verify the skill's core logic sections are all present (compare section headings with source)
4. No orphaned Claude-specific syntax — check for $ARGUMENTS, ultrathink, effort: that should have been transformed or removed

IF validation fails: report which check failed and fix before proceeding to the next skill.

Step 5: Report Results

Print a summary table:

| Source Skill | Kiro Skill | Changes |
|---|---|---|
| .claude/skills/ai-init/SKILL.md | .kiro/skills/ai-init/SKILL.md | Removed model, enhanced desc, rewrote 3 refs |

Then note:

• Any skills that use a non-default model: — the user may want to configure Kiro agents
• Cross-reference count — how many / to plain name replacements were made
• Any references/ or scripts/ directories that were copied
• Suggest the user test migrated skills in Kiro

Edge Cases

• Skills with no frontmatter: Wrap the content with minimal frontmatter (name: derived from the directory name, description: derived from the first heading or paragraph)
• Skills referencing non-skill paths: Don't replace file paths like /src/utils/ or /api/v1/ — only replace references that match known skill names or the /ai-code- / /ai-doc- / /ai-util- prefix patterns
• Deeply nested skill names: Names like ai-util-git-worktree keep the same directory name — this is valid
• Skills with bundled scripts or references: Copy the entire directory contents, not just SKILL.md
• Existing Kiro skills: If .kiro/skills/<name>/SKILL.md already exists, warn the user and ask whether to overwrite or skip