Steering

A spec says what to build this time. A steering document says how this project builds anything: conventions, architecture, testing habits. The Steering view shows the ones your assistant already reads, in one place.

Your assistant, the one you chose in speckit.aiProvider, already has a place for those. Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md, Codex and OpenCode read AGENTS.md, and the others have their own filenames. Providers lists every path. The Steering view adds no new format.

The Steering view, in the middle, lists the project's constitution, scripts and templates beside the Specs and Living Specs views.

What the view shows

Two scopes run through it. Project is this repository. User is you, on this machine, across every project.

Section	Shows when
Companion	The Companion Spec Kit extension is installed
Your assistant	Always. Holds Project and User groups for the rule file, Agents, Skills and Settings.
Steering Docs	Your assistant has a steering directory with at least one document
SpecKit Project Files	A constitution, script or template exists
References	A custom workflow declares reference folders that exist

A missing section means that thing does not exist in this project yet. With IDE Chat there is no assistant-owned configuration, so those sections are empty.

The Steering view: the Companion node, your assistant, and the SpecKit project files.

What you can do

Every action builds a prompt and hands it to your assistant.

Action	What happens
New Steering Document	Your assistant writes a markdown file into the steering directory
Refine	Your assistant improves the document in place
Delete Steering	The file is removed, then your assistant cleans up references to it
Create Project Rule, Create User Rule	Creates or opens your assistant’s own rule file, named as it really is, for example GEMINI.md

Refine and Delete appear only on Steering Docs and References. Assistant files and Spec Kit files can be opened and revealed, never deleted from the tree.

SpecKit Companion does not read them

Nothing under Steering is read when a step is sent. The command carries the spec, not your rules. Your assistant reads its own file on its own, so a rule that is ignored is a question for the assistant. The view can show you CLAUDE.md. It cannot make the assistant follow it.

The Companion node

With the Companion Spec Kit extension installed, a Companion node comes first.

Row	Opens
Configuration	.specify/companion.yml. See Hooks.
Commands	The /speckit.companion.* set from the installed extension
Templates	The extension’s markdown templates. Hidden when there are none.

Related

• Constitution is the one steering file Spec Kit itself defines.
• Review with comments shapes one spec, where steering shapes all of them.