settings Overview · Kiro CLI Guide

Use the settings command to manage global and workspace settings, and walk through the most commonly used setting keys.

settings is where you tweak how Kiro CLI behaves. Whatever you configure gets saved and sticks around across sessions.

Basic operations

kiro-cli settings <key> <value>     # set a value
kiro-cli settings <key>             # read the current value
kiro-cli settings --delete <key>    # delete it
kiro-cli settings list              # list configured items
kiro-cli settings list --all        # list all available settings (including unset ones)
kiro-cli settings open              # open the settings file in your editor

Global vs workspace

kiro-cli settings <key> <value> --global      # global (default)
kiro-cli settings <key> <value> --workspace   # only for the current project

Global: ~/.kiro/settings/cli.json
Workspace: .kiro/settings/cli.json

When the same key is set at different levels, who wins? The priority order is Session > Workspace > Global — the closer it is to you, the higher it ranks.

Value types

Boolean: true / false
String: just give it
Number: just give it
Array: JSON format, e.g. '["a","b"]'

The most useful setting keys

# default model and agent
kiro-cli settings chat.defaultModel claude-opus-4.8
kiro-cli settings chat.defaultAgent dev

# turn on advanced features
kiro-cli settings chat.enableSubagent true
kiro-cli settings chat.enableKnowledge true
kiro-cli settings chat.enableCodeIntelligence true
kiro-cli settings chat.enableTodoList true
kiro-cli settings chat.enableThinking true
kiro-cli settings chat.enableNotifications true

Setting	What it does
`chat.defaultModel`	Default model for new sessions
`chat.defaultAgent`	Default agent for new sessions
`chat.enableSubagent`	Enable subagent parallelism
`chat.enableKnowledge`	Enable the knowledge base
`chat.enableCodeIntelligence`	Enable code intelligence (LSP)
`chat.enableTodoList`	Enable the task list
`chat.enableThinking`	Enable thinking
`chat.enableNotifications`	Desktop notification when done
`chat.disableAutoCompaction`	Turn off auto-compaction (keeps full context, uses more tokens)
`telemetry.enabled`	Telemetry toggle

TIP

Not sure which settings you can tweak? Run kiro-cli settings list --all — it lists every available key along with its description. If you want to get a feel for what’s adjustable, this is the fastest place to start.

chat.disableAutoCompaction true lets long conversations keep their full context, at the cost of higher token usage. And once a conversation gets long enough, you can still hit the context limit. Just leave auto-compaction on (it’s on by default anyway) — don’t go turning it off.

Example: set up your “fully automated dev” preferences in one go

kiro-cli settings chat.defaultModel claude-opus-4.8
kiro-cli settings chat.enableSubagent true
kiro-cli settings chat.enableTodoList true
kiro-cli settings chat.enableCodeIntelligence true
kiro-cli settings chat.enableKnowledge true
kiro-cli settings chat.enableNotifications true

Next chapter: shell integration, themes, and turning plain English into commands.