Working with agents

What an agent does

An agent is an AI tool such as Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex, connected to your Kite account. You talk to it in its own app, as you always do. When you ask for a design, it makes a Kite file (or opens the one you name), draws into it and gives you the link.

It works in your files with your rights: it can open and change what you can, and nothing else. Your team sees its work as they would a teammate's, live, and can change it straight after.

Connect an agent

You connect each tool once. There are three ways in, and they all open the same steps:

• Settings → Agents: choose Connect an agent. Your account menu's Connect an app opens the same page.
• In a file, open the file menu (the Kite mark at the top left) and choose Connect an agent….
• On an empty page, choose Ask your agent.

Pick your tool from the list and follow its steps. Most take a click or a command, then your tool opens Kite and asks Let … use your Kite?: choose Allow. There is no key to copy. Opened from a file, the dialog ends with a first message to send your tool, so it starts on that file and what you have selected.

Ask well

Ask as you would ask a designer: what it is for, who it is for, and anything it must include. A few that work well:

• “Make me a launch banner in a new Kite file, then give me the link.”
• “Design a landing page for a bike repair shop in a new Kite file: a hero, three services, prices and a contact form.”
• “In my open Kite file, make a phone version of the Home frame beside it.”
• “Make three versions of this card with different layouts, side by side.”

Before it draws, an agent reads the file's design system: its colours, type, spacing and shadows, and the skills that say how to use them. That is what keeps its work looking like yours. A file with no design system gets the agent's own choices; to change that, choose one in the file's Assets tab or ask the agent to make one. See Design systems.

Point at something

Your agent can see which file you have open and what you have selected, so “this” and “here” mean what you mean: select a frame, then ask it to “make this denser”.

To hand it something exactly, select the layers, right-click and choose Copy/Paste as → Copy for agent. It copies a line naming the file and the layers; paste it into your agent and finish the sentence.

Watch it work

Open the link your agent gives you, or have the file open already. While an agent works:

• The frames it is changing glow in its colour.
• A pill above the toolbar says who is at work and where, such as Claude is designing Home.
• Its cursor, with its name, moves to each piece as it lands, so the screen builds up section by section.

You can keep working in the same file. What it draws is ordinary layers: select them, change them, or undo them as your own.

Follow an agent

When an agent moves out of view, to its next screen or the section below, the board goes to it on its own and keeps its work in view. It waits until you have left the board alone for a few seconds, so it never moves the board from under you. While it follows, the pill says Following.

To stop, touch the board, press any key, or click the × on the pill (Stop following). To follow on purpose, open Agents in this file and choose Follow beside the agent at work.

Agents in this file

Beside the faces of the people in a file, at the top right, are the agents that have worked in it. With none yet, a plug button (Connect agent) stands in their place. Click either to open Agents in this file:

• Each agent that has worked here, and when. The one at work now has a dot and a Follow button.
• Build with components, for this file (below).
• Follow agents: whether the board follows agents on its own. It is on by default, and is yours alone: it applies in this browser, in every file.
• Connect an agent, or Connect another agent.

Only people who can edit the file see the agents. Someone who can only view it does not.

Build with components

With Build with components on, an agent draws a part that repeats across screens, such as a nav, a header or a tab bar, once, makes it a component and places copies of it. Change the main one later and every screen follows. Drawing this way takes the agent longer, which is why it is off by default.

• For one file: the switch in Agents in this file.
• For every file you haven't set on its own: Settings → Agents → In your files.

Left off, an agent that finds itself drawing the same part a third time offers once to switch it on. More on components in Components.

Requests in comments

You can ask your agent for a change from inside Kite. Press C, click the frame, and write @ and your agent's name, as you would mention a teammate: “@Claude make this card denser”. The list marks agents your agent and people teammate. It offers the agents you have connected, in files you can edit.

The comment then shows where the request stands:

In a browser, nothing starts the agent for you: the request waits. Tell your agent do my Kite requests, in any chat, and it finds each waiting request with the frame it was left on, does it, and answers in the thread. Where a request leaves something open, such as which picture, the agent makes the sensible choice and says what it chose, rather than coming back with a question.

In Kite for Mac, a request for Claude or Codex can run on your Mac as soon as you send it: the comment box says Run with Claude Code when sent, with a switch. Turn it off and the request waits until you choose Run now on the comment. See Agents on your Mac.

What agents can and can't do

An agent can:

• Make files, find them, read every page and layer, draw, edit, copy and delete layers.
• Read and change design systems: their variables, modes, styles and skills, and keep a skill when you ask it to.
• Make components and variants, place copies, and publish and update libraries.
• Look at a frame as a picture, to check its work before it says it has finished.
• Read comments, answer them and carry out the requests left for it.
• Change who can open a file, and archive a file.

It can't delete a file for good: archiving is the furthest it goes, and you can undo that from Archive. It can't change your account, your workspace or its people. Every tool, one by one, is listed in Features.

Turn one off

Open Settings → Agents. Under Your agents, each one says when it connected and when it was last used. Choose Disconnect and it stops working in your files within seconds. See Revoke access.