Kiro Headless Can't Resolve Resources Using Environment Variables

[MattiaDellOca]

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• I have searched for duplicate or closed issues

Operating System

macOS 15.5

Kiro Version

2.2.0

Bug Description

When running Kiro in headless mode (kiro-cli chat --no-interactive), skills are not used within the execution.

EDIT: this only happens when skill references use environment variables. In the following example, the first skill will be loaded, while the second will not:

{
  "name": "my-agent",
  "resources": [
    "skill://~/.kiro/skills/working-skill/SKILL.md",
    "skill://$USER_HOME/.kiro/skills/broken-skill/SKILL.md"
  ]
}

Note that both skills work in regular mode (kiro-cli chat), so environment variables are not resolved only for headless mode!

Steps to Reproduce

1. Define an agent that makes use of skills and environment variables
2. Run the agent in headless mode and make a question about skills:

kiro-cli chat --agent <my_agent> --no-interactive "Do you have access to any agent skill?"

Expected Behavior

I would expect the agent to have access to referenced skills.
Note this already happen when running in regular mode. I confirmed this by running:

kiro-cli chat --agent <my_agent> "Do you have access to any agent skill?"

When using this configuration, the agent can correctly use the available skills.

Conversation ID

No response

Additional Context

No response

[github-actions]

🤖 Potential Duplicate Detected

This issue appears to be similar to:

• #6955: Skills: relative file references in SKILL.md cannot be resolved by the agent (85% similar)
• #6122: Xcode MCP server loads successfully but tools are not available to the agent (85% similar)
• #5873: MCP tools not injected into LLM tool list for workspace-defined agents (.kiro/agents/*.json) (85% similar)
• #5476: Weird issue about tools not available in chat session (85% similar)

What happens next?

• ⏰ This issue will be automatically closed in 3 days
• 🏷️ If this is not a duplicate, you can prevent automatic closure by adding a comment or reacting with 👎 to this message.
• 💬 Comment on the original issue if you have additional information

Why is this marked as duplicate?
Both issues report problems with skills functionality - the new issue reports skills not working in headless mode, while #6955 reports skills having issues with file references. Both are core skills functionality problems in Kiro CLI.

[github-actions]

Thank you for your feedback! 🙏

The 👎 reaction has been noted. The duplicate label has been removed and this issue has been sent back for maintainer review.

A maintainer will review this issue shortly.

[MattiaDellOca]

I managed to identify what was causing the problem of skills not being loaded in headless mode!
I've updated the issue accordingly