Kiro is Amazon Web Services’ agent-based development environment, organized around spec-driven development. Before code is written, tasks go through requirements, design and an implementation plan, which records decisions in the repository.
What it’s for
- Turning a need into requirements, design and a task list before implementation
- Running coding tasks with agents that follow the recorded plan
- Running subagents in parallel for independent parts of the work
- Generating and maintaining tests, including property-based tests
- Carrying the flow into CI/CD pipelines and AWS governance
How it works
- Work starts from versioned specifications in the repository, which serve as context for the agents
- The agent implements tasks, updates the specification when needed and verifies the result
- There are IDE and command-line surfaces (Kiro CLI), with cloud sessions
- Governance features and integration with AWS services cover enterprise scenarios
Where it runs
- Kiro’s own IDE
- Command line (Kiro CLI)
- Agent sessions in the cloud
- CI/CD pipelines
Availability and licensing
- Proprietary AWS product
- Takes the place of Amazon Q Developer, whose IDE plugins are reaching end of support and point to migration to Kiro
- Offering with individual plans and enterprise features
Strengths
- Spec-first approach that documents requirements, design and tasks
- Parallel subagents and property-based tests
- Integration with the AWS ecosystem and governance
- Official continuity for Amazon Q Developer users
Things to note
- Specification discipline changes the workflow and requires team adoption
- Proprietary product tied to the AWS ecosystem
- Features and limits vary by plan