Building a Chrome Extension to Autofill Job Applications with Kiro 🚀

Jess — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 20:56:06 +0000

Applying for jobs can feel like a full-time job itself — countless forms, the same details typed over and over again… name, email, LinkedIn URL, experience summary. 🙄

So for the Code with Kiro Hackathon, I decided to solve this pain point by building a Chrome Extension that autofills job applications. But here’s the twist: instead of building everything from scratch the old way, I used Kiro as my coding partner. And honestly? It changed the way I think about building software.

Why Kiro?

At first, I just wanted an AI to speed things up. What I didn’t expect was how Kiro’s spec-first approach made my workflow more structured and productive than ever.

Here’s what blew me away:

📝 Spec Coding: I gave Kiro a generic prompt (“I want to build a Chrome extension to autofill job applications”), and it instantly generated:

requirements.md
design.md
tasks.md

Suddenly, I had a clear roadmap, broken into features and detailed tasks. It felt like having a product manager and architect working alongside me. 💜

⚙️ Understanding Build Errors: When I ran npm run build and hit errors, Kiro didn’t just throw guesses. It parsed the errors, explained them, and implemented fixes. Even cooler: it offered to run the commands itself if I trusted it. Watching it debug my build pipeline in real-time was like pair programming with a superpowered teammate.

🎯 Spec Steering: This feature became my favourite. It provided context-aware conversations around product, structure, and tech, so Kiro’s answers were consistently relevant. No more vague or generic replies — every suggestion was grounded in the project’s direction.

🔄 Agent Hooks: I experimented with several hooks — Documentation Sync, Project Structure Organizer, and Code Quality & Improvement. I preferred keeping them manual so I could choose when to run them. For example, I didn’t want Kiro updating docs every time I was just testing a quick js or html snippet. Instead, I triggered the sync once I had meaningful changes.

📝 Documentation Sync kept my docs aligned with the actual state of the project — super useful when I wanted my README.md or design.md to reflect reality.
📂 Project Structure Organizer really shined. With so many test files floating around (.js, .html, or instruction.md), it helped me keep the repo clean and maintainable.
✅ Code Quality & Improvement became my on-demand code reviewer. Every time I triggered it, I got actionable feedback and improvements, like having a senior engineer peer-review my changes.

Building the Chrome Extension

The extension itself is fairly straightforward:

Stores job seeker details (like name, email, LinkedIn, CV link).
Detects form fields on job sites.
Autofills them with saved info at a click.

But thanks to Kiro, the process didn’t just feel like “coding” — it felt like collaborating. Instead of wasting energy on project setup, context switching, or debugging configs, I spent most of my time building the actual user-facing features.

Lessons Learned

Specs > Starting Blind
Having requirements.md,design.md and tasks.md upfront made every coding session laser-focused.

Debugging With Context Saves Hours
Instead of searching StackOverflow for every build error, Kiro contextualized and solved them on the spot.

Balance Automation with Control
The agent hooks were powerful, but I learned when to let automation run and when to keep focus on building.

What’s Next?

I plan to polish the extension with:

Multi-profile support (different autofill sets for different target jobs/industries).
Syncing across devices.
A simple UI for editing saved details.

And of course, I’ll continue steering Kiro with specs to keep the project structured.

Final Thoughts 💡

This hackathon wasn’t just about building a tool — it was about discovering a new way to build software.

With Kiro, I felt less like a solo developer and more like part of a small but mighty team. It guided, debugged, reviewed, and structured my work. And most importantly, it let me focus on solving the real problem: making job applications less painful.

If you’re curious about building faster, smarter, and with way less frustration, give Kiro a try. It might just change the way you think about coding.