Self Management

Self Management

Use this skill when the task is to change Kian itself: app preferences, workspace path, model or provider settings, chat integrations, MCP servers, shortcuts, or other persisted settings.

When to Use

• The user asks to modify Kian settings, preferences, integrations, or model configuration.
• The user wants to inspect why Kian is using a certain provider, model, shortcut, or chat channel setting.
• The task targets Kian's own config files rather than files inside a project workspace.

Configuration Files

• Read references/config-files.md before editing so the file path, on-disk shape, and supported values match the current implementation.
• The main config lives in two places:
  • Global config: the user config directory (~/.kian/config.json in packaged builds, ~/.kian-dev/config.json in dev builds).
  • Workspace settings: <workspaceRoot>/.kian/settings.json.
• Legacy <workspaceRoot>/settings.json is migration input only. Do not write to it.

Safe Workflow

1. Locate the active config files from the existing environment instead of guessing.
2. Read the current file first and make the smallest change that satisfies the request.
3. Preserve unrelated keys, secrets, ids, and timestamps unless the user explicitly asked to rotate or remove them.
4. Keep JSON valid: no comments, no trailing commas, no partially written structures.
5. Re-read the edited file and verify the requested value is present in a supported format.
6. After changing persisted settings, call the ReloadSettings app-operation tool so shortcuts, chat channels, MCP runtime, and subsequent Agent sessions pick up the latest config.
7. If workspaceRoot changed, still tell the user a restart is usually required because many services resolve the workspace path at startup.

Capability Boundaries

• Only promise changes that match the current implementation and schemas in references/config-files.md.
• Do not claim that mainSubModeEnabled can be disabled. The current implementation always normalizes it to true.
• Do not invent new config sections, provider ids, shortcut actions, or MCP transport types.
• For mcpServers, preserve id and createdAt on edits; only update the fields the user requested and refresh updatedAt.
• For shortcuts, edit only the six supported actions in the current schema.
• For provider or chat-channel secrets, keep the existing secret intact if the user asked to change another field only.

Validation Checklist

• The target file is the correct active config file.
• The JSON parses successfully after the edit.
• Arrays such as enabledModels, args, userIds, serverIds, and channelIds are still arrays of strings.
• Map-like fields such as env and headers remain string-to-string objects.
• Required nested objects under shortcuts and chatChannels are still present.
• ReloadSettings was called after the config edit unless the task was read-only.