Question: How do I set guidance at project level. Example: Kiro Steering Docs, Spec Kit Constitution #234

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1. harikrishnan83 commented on Oct 23, 2025

   

   harikrishnan83

   on Oct 23, 2025

   Last edited by harikrishnan83

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   I am guessing below line which we run after init, is the equivalent for setup guidance and convention. CMIIW.

   Please read openspec/project.md and help me fill it out with details about my project, tech stack, and conventions
2. TabishB commented on Oct 23, 2025

   

   TabishB

   on Oct 23, 2025

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   Hey @harikrishnan83

   Yep there's a openspec/project.md that you can populate that acts similarly to kiro's steering. Though to be honest, I did lots of testing with and without the steering doc and I found that it usually makes minimal difference in how the agent performs.

   Usually the agentic search using ripgrep, glob, ls is usually good enough for an agent to be able to navigate and understand the repository. Hence maybe why I haven't placed a similar level of enough of emphasis on the project doc.

   👍React with 👍1Reacted by HariKrishnan

   👀React with 👀1Reacted by Harvey Williams
3. TabishB

   closed this as completedin #241on Oct 26, 2025
4. harvzor commented on Mar 3, 2026

   

   harvzor

   on Mar 3, 2026

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   The issue is old, but project.md has been deprecated in favour of config.yaml:

   OpenSpec/docs/migration-guide.md

   Lines 60 to 79 in afdca0d

   	**`openspec/project.md`** — This file isn't deleted automatically because it may contain project context you've written. You'll need to:
   	1. Review its contents
   	2. Move useful context to `openspec/config.yaml` (see guidance below)
   	3. Delete the file when ready
   	**Why we made this change:**
   	The old `project.md` was passive—agents might read it, might not, might forget what they read. We found reliability was inconsistent.
   	The new `config.yaml` context is **actively injected into every OpenSpec planning request**. This means your project conventions, tech stack, and rules are always present when the AI is creating artifacts. Higher reliability.
   	**The tradeoff:**
   	Because context is injected into every request, you'll want to be concise. Focus on what really matters:
   	- Tech stack and key conventions
   	- Non-obvious constraints the AI needs to know
   	- Rules that frequently got ignored before
   	Don't worry about getting it perfect. We're still learning what works best here, and we'll be improving how context injection works as we experiment.