Kiro

Kiro AI IDE from AWS

Kiro is an AI-driven Integrated Development Environment (IDE) introduced by AWS. It focuses on spec-driven development, which is a promising new approach to software development. The IDE is built on top of Visual Studio Code, providing flexibility and familiarity for developers.

Users have noted that Kiro offers an agentic experience, differing from other AI coding tools like Windsurf, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, and Amazon Q Developer by prominently supporting spec-driven workflows. Early users have shown excitement about Kiro’s public release, appreciating its innovative capabilities and the integration of AI with standard development tools.

Kiro stands out as one of the first major company-backed “agentic” IDEs, which could influence the future of AI-assisted development by offering a more integrated and spec-focused approach compared to tools primarily offering code completion or extensions.

For further insights, one Reddit community member shared a detailed review of their experience using Kiro, highlighting the efficiency of spec-driven development: https://yehudacohen.substack.com/p/developing-with-kiro-amazons-new

2026 Updates

CLI / TUI Launch (Q1 2026) → see Kiro CLI

• Kiro launched a CLI with TUI (terminal UI) interface — a significant addition to the original IDE-only offering
• CLI 3.0 (early access Jun 2026) moved the CLI onto the same unified agent harness as the IDE and Web, making .kiro/ config portable across all three surfaces
• Full detail on skills implementation, /spec commands, steering, hooks and permissions.yaml: Kiro CLI

Extension mechanisms — Powers, Skills, Steering

Three distinct layers, easily confused:

• Agent Skills: .kiro/skills/<name>/SKILL.md following the open Agent Skills standard (same format as Claude Code). Loaded by progressive disclosure — name/description at startup, full body on match. Invocable as /<skill-name> since CLI 2.1 (Apr 2026).
• Steering: .kiro/steering/ — Kiro-specific persistent project context (product.md, tech.md, structure.md always-on, plus custom files with always / auto / fileMatch / manual inclusion modes)
• Powers: installable plugins with a plugin.json manifest that bundle MCP tools + skills + steering, activated dynamically by conversation keywords
• Hooks: .kiro/hooks/*.json, lifecycle triggers including PreTaskExec / PostTaskExec around spec tasks
• MCP: the tool layer Powers wrap

Spec-Driven Development Maturation

• Spec mode remains Kiro’s primary differentiator: requirements → design → tasks → agent execution, stored in .kiro/specs/<name>/
• requirements.md uses EARS notation (WHEN … THE SYSTEM SHALL …), making acceptance criteria machine-checkable
• Task execution runs in waves — Kiro analyses dependencies and runs independent tasks concurrently, no setup required
• Multiple spec types: feature specs (Requirements-First / Design-First / Quick Spec), bug-fix specs (bugfix.md), build-on-existing-app specs
• Community practice: “spec vs vibes” — deliberate spec-driven approach shown to outperform ad-hoc vibe coding for complex projects

Limitations

• Historic (early 2026, pre-3.0): powers not usable from the CLI, no shell scripts or JSON inside powers, skills required packaging as a separate CLI tool. The unified harness in 3.0 removed this IDE/CLI split.
• Custom agents load no skills by default — they need explicit skill:// entries in resources. Persistent source of “my skill does nothing” reports.
• Some IDE UX friction remains: rigid manual-click workflows, limited autopilot behaviour

Hackathon & Community

• Kiro Hackathon ($17,000 prize pool, Jan 2026): Major community engagement; judging on app quality, documented Kiro CLI/IDE usage, innovation, and presentation video
• Kiroween Hackathon (Oct 2025): Earlier community event
• Bi-weekly Kiro shows: regular live demos covering spec-driven development, MCP integration, design-to-code with Figma, and steering patterns
• Active community sharing skills, devlog templates, and context-engineering patterns

Claude Skills → Kiro Powers Porting

• Developers (e.g., Rasmus Widing) attempted to port Claude Code skills (Work Tree Manager) into Kiro powers
• Findings: core functionality works via CLI but IDE permissions block shell scripts/JSON in powers; full integration requires packaging runtime as an installable CLI tool

See Also

• Kiro CLI — terminal surface: skills implementation, /spec workflow, steering, hooks, permissions
• Kiro Autonomous Agent — background / frontier-agent layer
• Obsidian Kiro Agent OS Setup — Obsidian vault as skill library

Sources:

• Kiro Docs — official documentation (specs, skills, steering, hooks, powers)
• Have you tried the new Kiro CLI TUI? — Kiro channel, 2026-04-08
• Kiro Powers and Agent Skills in Your Development Workflows — Kiro channel, 2026-04-02
• I Tried Porting Claude Skills to Kiro — This Is What I Learned — Rasmus Widing, 2026-01-07
• Join the $17,000 Hackathon — My First Hour with Kiro — Rasmus Widing, 2026-01-05
• I Tried Amazon’s Kiro AI IDE — Deep Dive for Developers — Qubixtro, 2025-07-17