Skip to main content

Amazon Web ServicesAI Coding Agent

Kiro

Agentic IDE and CLI from AWS that turns prompts into requirements, designs, and task lists before writing code. It adds cloud sessions, steering files, hooks, and a choice of Claude, GPT, and open-weight models billed in credits.

The 30-Second Take

Pick Kiro if you want a written plan before agent code, billed and governed through AWS.

Its IDE, CLI and cloud sessions turn a prompt into requirements, a design and a task list before writing code. Kiro CLI replaced Amazon Q Developer CLI in November 2025.

Best fit
Teams that want specs and shared steering behind agent work, billed and governed through AWS.
Main constraint
Specs add time and review load that small changes do not repay.
First move
Pilot on Pro seats through IAM Identity Center with shared steering and a spec size rule.

Why

Watch the spec tax: practitioners split almost evenly on whether specs repay their cost, and one-line fixes do not earn one. Set a rule for how long a spec may be and which changes get one.

Practitioner sentiment, all practitioners+10 Mixed

41 practitioners, 89 sources reviewed, Updated Nov 1, 2026How this is measured

Read the GILD Review
Save a product your organization uses.Keep up with Kiro without adding it to your stack.Visit Website
Operating stack
Agentic Software Development

Comparisons

How does Kiro compare with the alternatives?

  1. Kiro vs Cursor

    • AI Coding Agents

    Pick Kiro to plan work as specs before code and bill seats through AWS. Pick Cursor for a fast agent loop in the editor, with Teams seats and SAML or OIDC SSO sold directly.

  2. Kiro vs Claude Code

    • AI Coding Agents

    Pick Claude Code for terminal and IDE work on Anthropic's models; every paid Claude plan includes it. Pick Kiro for AWS billing and specs before code; some engineers pair the two.

  3. Kiro vs GitHub Copilot

    • AI Coding Agents

    Copilot adds agents to the editors and GitHub workflow a team already has. Kiro asks engineers to work in its IDE or CLI and plans each change as a spec first. Choose Copilot to keep your current tools, and Kiro to plan changes as specs and govern them through AWS.

Operator Insights

What are engineering leaders learning from deploying Kiro?

See all 3 operator accounts

Buying and deployment

What engineering leaders should verify before a broader rollout.

Sourced from Kiro documentation

How you buy it

US$20

Per user per month for Pro with 1,000 credits. Free includes 50.

Source 1, Amazon Web Services, Kiro pricing: Kiro pricing

Details

Free with 50 credits a month; Pro US$20, Pro+ US$40, Pro Max US$100, or Power US$200 per user per month with 1,000 to 10,000 credits. Teams of 2 to 500 subscribe the same tiers, and Enterprise plans are purchased and billed through AWS.

Cost drivers

US$0.04

Per extra credit. Opus 5.5 draws 2x per prompt, and unused credits expire monthly.

Source 1, Amazon Web Services, Kiro pricing: Kiro pricingSource 2, Amazon Web Services, Kiro docs: Models: Kiro docs: Models

Details

Every prompt, spec task, and hook draws credits, metered to 0.01. The model sets the rate: Auto 1x, Haiku 5.5 0.06x up to 100K tokens and 0.3x above, Sonnet 5.5 1.3x, Opus 5.5 2x, Kimi K3 2.4x, as Kiro's models page lists them. Kiro's pricing page still names Sonnet 5 and Opus 5 as its newest Claude models and links the models page for current multipliers. Extra credits cost US$0.04, and unused plan credits expire monthly.

Where it runs

IDE, CLI, web

The IDE on three systems, the CLI, cloud sessions on web, an iOS app in early access, and ACP editors.

Source 5, kiro.dev, Kiro downloads: Kiro downloadsSource 9, kiro.dev, Kiro docs: CLI setup: Kiro docs: CLI setupSource 3, Amazon Web Services, Kiro docs: Enterprise governance: Kiro docs: Enterprise governanceSource 6, kiro.dev, Kiro docs: Mobile: Kiro docs: MobileSource 7, kiro.dev, Kiro docs: ACP: Kiro docs: ACPSource 8, kiro.dev, Kiro docs: Crew: Kiro docs: Crew

Details

Kiro IDE for macOS, Windows, and Linux, Kiro CLI, Kiro Web on cloud sessions with an iOS app in TestFlight early access, ACP editors such as JetBrains IDEs, and the open-source Kiro Crew workspace.

What to verify

Training opt-out

AWS can train on Free and personal-sign-in content unless users opt out, never on managed sign-ins.

Source 4, Amazon Web Services, Kiro docs: Data protection: Kiro docs: Data protectionSource 3, Amazon Web Services, Kiro docs: Enterprise governance: Kiro docs: Enterprise governance

Details

AWS can use content from Free Tier users and individual subscribers for service improvement, including model training, unless they opt out; never from enterprise users. Cloud Sessions, which every Kiro Web session now runs as, stay off for IAM Identity Center organizations until an administrator enables them.

Signals

What is the current evidence saying about Kiro?

A current read of what engineering teams and individual builders report publicly about Kiro, from its July 2025 launch to Kiro CLI and Kiro Web, with every finding linked to its sources.

Whose sources count

Practitioner sentiment, all practitioners

+10 Mixed net

of 41 sources that take a side, each author counted once.

How this figure is made

7 more state no overall view and cast no vote.

Leaders and teams have 2 accounts; GILD prints their sentiment from 20.

Current sentiment

Positive, mixed and negative sources

Across the 41 independent public accounts that give an opinion, the read is mixed and leans positive: 19 positive, 7 mixed, and 15 negative. The spec workflow draws the most praise, and all 9 sources that discuss review raise it as a concern. Engineers split 4 to 6 on whether specs repay their cost.

Use a task pilot to measure accepted work and review time.

Evidence field. All 89 sources, one mark each.

Arrange by

Each mark is one source: positive, mixed, negative, no opinion stated, or documentation (not counted).

By sentiment, All practitioners. Every source GILD read, grouped as the field draws it.
GroupSourcesPositiveMixedNegativeNo opinion stated and not counted in the scoreDocumentation, checked and not counted
Positive19190000
Mixed707000
Negative15001500
Not counted32000320
Documentation16000016
Every source GILD read, by the quarter it was published, as the field's time axis counts it. Documentation is dated by the day it was checked.
QuarterSources
Q3 202519
Q4 20258
Q1 202620
Q2 202620
Q3 20265
Q4 20261
Documentation, checked16

By sentiment

16 documentation pages check facts and are not counted.

Hover a mark for a quick look, click it or press Enter to open its source.Tap a mark to open its source, then step to its neighbors with Previous and Next.

What practitioners praise

Top praise of 4. Each mark is a source on it; filled marks praise it.

  1. Spec Workflow9 of 11 sources on it praise it

Most common concerns

Top concern of 5. Each mark is a source on it; filled marks raise it.

  1. Requires Strong ReviewAll 9 sources on it raise it as a concern
All 89 sources behind these findings
  1. Kiro pricingAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  2. Kiro FAQAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  3. ModelsAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  4. SpecsAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  5. SteeringAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  6. HooksAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  7. PermissionsAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  8. Kiro CLIAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  9. Upgrading from Amazon Q Developer CLIAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  10. Migrating from Amazon Q DeveloperAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  11. Cloud sessionsAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  12. Enterprise governanceAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  13. Enterprise settingsAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  14. Enterprise billingAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  15. Data protectionAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  16. Compliance validationAmazon Web Services (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 12, 2026
  17. Reliability regression: file edits fail, IDE freezes, spec operations die with network errors, and in-app bug reporter is brokenrsammons, GitHub user (self-described: Kiro IDE 1.1.14 on Windows 11 Business, spec-driven work), GitHub issue on kirodotdev/Kiro, published Oct 2, 2026
  18. Comment on: Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceXs4i, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Aug 31, 2026
  19. Comment on: Meta Security Researcher's AI Agent Accidentally Deleted Her Emailscodeduck, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Aug 31, 2026
  20. Kiro IDE - Extension host crashes when processing large LLM responses (event loop blocked)rgoltz, GitHub user (self-described: Two Kiro instances on Windows 11, spec sessions with subagents), GitHub issue on kirodotdev/Kiro, published Aug 6, 2026
  21. Kiro CLI Gets Worse After an Hour. Here's How I Fixed It.Engineer working daily across AWS accounts (self-described: Daily AWS operations work with Kiro CLI), Personal blog post, DEV Community (AWS Community Builders), published Jul 16, 2026
  22. Comment on: GLM 5.2 and the coming AI margin collapsedanny_codes, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Jul 7, 2026
  23. Comment on: Codex logging bug may write TBs to local SSDsiLoveOncall, Amazon engineer (self-described: Amazon or AWS engineer describing internal use), Hacker News comment, published Jun 22, 2026
  24. Comment on: Codex logging bug may write TBs to local SSDsepistasis, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Jun 22, 2026
  25. Comment on: AI coding at home without going brokeastqs, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Jun 13, 2026
  26. Comment on: 'Sloppenheimer:' Amazon employees mock the company's AI on Slackisengard3000, Amazon employee (self-described: Amazon or AWS engineer describing internal use), Hacker News comment, published Jun 9, 2026
  27. Comment on: 'Sloppenheimer:' Amazon employees mock the company's AI on Slacksparrc, AWS engineer (self-described: AWS; most engineers use Kiro, with team-specific skills and an org MCP server for on-call), Hacker News comment, published Jun 9, 2026
  28. Comment on: Ask HN: What was your "oh shit" moment with GenAI?korbonits, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Jun 6, 2026
  29. Comment on: Alphabet announces $80B equity capital raise to expand AI infra and computemarysol5, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Uses Kiro and Gemini at work), Hacker News comment, published Jun 2, 2026
  30. Comment on: AI sticker shock hits corporate Americaforgotaccount3, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Employer-wide Kiro deployment with overages enabled), Hacker News comment, published May 28, 2026
  31. Comment on: Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licensesInsanity, Amazon engineer (self-described: Amazon or AWS engineer describing internal use), Hacker News comment, published May 23, 2026
  32. Comment on: Show HN: I Made a Claude Skill for Spec-Driven Development (SDD)NTRIXLM, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Team on a shared Claude subscription; Kiro not provided by the employer), Hacker News comment, published May 21, 2026
  33. When a Kiro CLI Update Silently Breaks Your MCP Servers: The Approved Environment Variables GotchaDeveloper (self-described: Daily Kiro CLI workflow with MCP servers), Personal blog post, DEV Community, published May 21, 2026
  34. Comment on: I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosisMiner49er, Hacker News commenter (self-described: On a team, Kiro plan at $20 a month for 1000 credits), Hacker News comment, published May 16, 2026
  35. Comment on: Amazon rolls out Claude Code and Codex internallyiLoveOncall, Amazon engineer (self-described: Amazon, company-wide internal tooling), Hacker News comment, published May 5, 2026
  36. Comment on: Uncle Bob: It's Overk3vinw, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Team project, refactoring existing code), Hacker News comment, published May 3, 2026
  37. Using Spec Driven Development with AWS Kiro to add the last updated date on Eleventy blogGeshan Manandhar, Geshan's Blog (self-described: Personal Eleventy blog, one feature built through a spec), Personal blog post, published May 3, 2026
  38. Comment on: Microsoft and OpenAI end their exclusive and revenue-sharing dealtopce, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Uses both GitHub Copilot and Kiro), Hacker News comment, published Apr 27, 2026
  39. Kiro Forgets Everything Every Session. So I've Built It a Memory.Developer (self-described: Daily Kiro CLI use on a TypeScript CLI project), Personal blog post, DEV Community, published Apr 27, 2026
  40. Comment on: Pro Max 5x quota exhausted in 1.5 hours despite moderate usagegeeky4qwerty, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Kiro as IDE and Codex as CLI, also pays for Google Pro), Hacker News comment, published Apr 12, 2026
  41. Kiro showcase: Automating Changes Across Several Repos with Spec-Driven Development and Custom Sub-AgentsEngineering manager, cloud infrastructure platform team (self-described: Platform team responsible for Terraform across 200+ repositories), Personal blog post, DEV Community, published Apr 7, 2026
  42. Kiro subscription assignment fails on Organizations management account and routes to standalone CreateAssignment pathimtaxu, GitHub user and AWS Organizations administrator (self-described: AWS Organizations management account assigning paid Kiro plans to IAM Identity Center users and groups), GitHub issue on kirodotdev/Kiro, published Apr 2, 2026
  43. Comment on: AWS Kiro accounts suspended en masse - AWS flagging fraud detection issueshuey77, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Building workern.io in Melbourne, on Kiro $200/month Power plan), Hacker News comment, published Mar 22, 2026
  44. Kiro for Test-Driven Development (TDD)Software developer and TDD trainer (self-described: Solo kata experiment), Personal blog post, DEV Community, published Mar 16, 2026
  45. Comment on: Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?konaraddi, AWS engineer (self-described: Amazon or AWS engineer describing internal use), Hacker News comment, published Mar 15, 2026
  46. Comment on: Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?humbleharbinger, Amazon engineer (self-described: Amazon or AWS engineer describing internal use), Hacker News comment, published Mar 15, 2026
  47. Comment on: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6avereveard, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Kiro at work, Roo Code at home), Hacker News comment, published Mar 14, 2026
  48. Comment on: After outages, Amazon to make senior engineers sign off on AI-assisted changeswenc, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Kiro IDE as spec generator, headless CLI agents in tmux for implementation), Hacker News comment, published Mar 11, 2026
  49. Comment on: After outages, Amazon to make senior engineers sign off on AI-assisted changesdaheza, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Senior engineering manager, team moving a monolith into AWS), Hacker News comment, published Mar 10, 2026
  50. Comment on: Amazon holds engineering meeting following AI-related outagesstavarotti, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Mar 10, 2026
  51. Comment on: How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and executionachenatx, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Feb 22, 2026
  52. Comment on: How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and executionmlaretallack, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Feb 22, 2026
  53. Comment on: Ask HN: Are you using an agent orchestrator to write code?mlaretallack, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Runs about four projects at once, one Kiro instance per desktop workspace), Hacker News comment, published Feb 13, 2026
  54. Kiro: AI spec-driven delivery and what it means for the future of software developmentLee Gilmore, Principal Cloud Architect and AWS Community Lead at Leighton (UK software consultancy with an AWS practice delivering client projects), Company blog post, Leighton, published Feb 13, 2026
  55. New sessions immediately hit 85%+ context usage and enter summarization loop, even with minimal steering docs and simple promptssmarchypants, GitHub user (self-described: Home automation workspace with three MCP servers, using Kiro for 6+ months), GitHub issue on kirodotdev/Kiro, published Jan 18, 2026
  56. Comment on: How do you pick a Coding Agent HN?hmokiguess, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Compares Claude Code, Codex, and Kiro), Hacker News comment, published Jan 15, 2026
  57. What I Learned Using Specification-Driven Development with KiroEngineer (self-described: A real project, solo), Personal blog post, DEV Community (AWS Community Builders), published Jan 12, 2026
  58. Comment on: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptionssirtaj, Hacker News commenter (self-described: At work), Hacker News comment, published Jan 9, 2026
  59. Comment on: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptionselfly, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Jan 9, 2026
  60. Comment on: Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptionscobolcomesback, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Jan 9, 2026
  61. Comment on: How Google got its groove back and edged ahead of OpenAIthegagne, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Software engineering architect, developer productivity golden paths), Hacker News comment, published Jan 8, 2026
  62. Comment on: Opus 4.5 is not the normal AI agent experience that I have had thus farfalkensmaize, Hacker News commenter (self-described: At work, TypeScript monorepo with about 20 apps), Hacker News comment, published Jan 7, 2026
  63. Comment on: The future of software development is software developersCuriouslyC, Hacker News commenter (self-described: CEO and chief scientist of Sibylline Software, building a spec-driven dev tool), Hacker News comment, published Dec 30, 2025
  64. I Stopped Fighting My AI How Kiro's agent hooks and steering files fixed my biggest frustration with AI coding toolsDeveloper (self-described: Solo, React and Node dashboard), Personal blog post, DEV Community, published Nov 26, 2025
  65. Comment on: Gemini 3lan321, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Works under company policy on LLM agent repo access), Hacker News comment, published Nov 19, 2025
  66. Brilliant, Broken, and Frustrating: My Deep Dive into Amazon's Kiro AI IDE, the Flawed Junior DeveloperDeveloper writing in the AWS Community Builders organization on DEV (self-described: Solo, personal projects), Personal blog post, DEV Community (AWS Community Builders), published Oct 24, 2025
  67. Comment on: Is vibe coding dying?nikolay, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Oct 23, 2025
  68. Comment on: Understanding Spec-Driven-Development: Kiro, Spec-Kit, and Tesslhatmanstack, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Oct 17, 2025
  69. Understanding Spec-Driven-Development: Kiro, spec-kit, and TesslBirgitta Böckeler, Distinguished Engineer at Thoughtworks (self-described: Hands-on evaluation of three spec-driven tools in September 2025, published on martinfowler.com), Engineering article, martinfowler.com, published Oct 15, 2025
  70. Comment on: Cursor 1.7jtrn, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Oct 1, 2025
  71. Comment on: Getting AI to work in complex codebasesKaiMagnus, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Sep 24, 2025
  72. First Impressions: I got my Kiro beta keyRyan Ries, Principal AI and Data Scientist at Mission Cloud (AWS consultancy; leads a team of data engineers, architects and data scientists; built a full-stack app during the beta), Company blog post, Mission Cloud, published Sep 10, 2025
  73. AWS Kiro: Arbitrary Code Execution via Indirect Prompt InjectionJohann Rehberger, security researcher (Embrace The Red) (self-described: Independent security testing of coding agents during his Month of AI Bugs series), Independent security evaluation, Embrace The Red, published Aug 26, 2025
  74. Comment on: I got access to Kiro preview. Amazon cannot compete with Claude-codeAchintyaAshok, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Aug 22, 2025
  75. Comment on: AWS pricing for Kiro dev tool dubbed 'a wallet-wrecking tragedy'shepardrtc, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Greenfield project, Kiro for specs and VS Code Copilot for the rest), Hacker News comment, published Aug 18, 2025
  76. Comment on: Ask HN: What's the best free AI coding assistant available?supermanonipad, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Non-programmer building personal projects), Hacker News comment, published Aug 17, 2025
  77. Comment on: Kiro Pricing Plans Are Now LiveChilledTonic, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Aug 15, 2025
  78. Comment on: Got tired of bad PDF WebApp so we made a Free, Open-Sourced, Private AlternativePseudoComputer, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Small team building an open-source PDF web app), Hacker News comment, published Aug 3, 2025
  79. Comment on: Developing with Kiro: Amazon's New Agentic IDEsqrtc, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Jul 25, 2025
  80. Comment on: Developing with Kiro: Amazon's New Agentic IDESemaphor, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Jul 25, 2025
  81. Comment on: Developing with Kiro: Amazon's New Agentic IDECu3PO42, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Personal macOS helper tool, TypeScript), Hacker News comment, published Jul 25, 2025
  82. Comment on: Developing with Kiro: Amazon's New Agentic IDEsgt101, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Jul 25, 2025
  83. Development environment AWS Kiro offers AI codingRandall Hunt, chief technology officer at Caylent (AWS Premier Partner consultancy building cloud and AI systems for clients), Conference interview article, theCUBE via SiliconANGLE, published Jul 16, 2025
  84. Comment on: Kiro: A new agentic IDEwillsmith72, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Jul 15, 2025
  85. Comment on: Cognition (Devin AI) to Acquire Windsurfdanudey, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Own Rust project rust-downloader, new to Rust), Hacker News comment, published Jul 15, 2025
  86. Comment on: Kiro: A new agentic IDEdanbeaulieu, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Amazon employee, per profile email), Hacker News comment, published Jul 15, 2025
  87. Comment on: Kiro: A new agentic IDEActorNightly, Hacker News commenter, self-described, Hacker News comment, published Jul 14, 2025
  88. Developing with Kiro: Amazon's New Agentic IDEYehuda Cohen, AWS Community Builder, Fun With The Cloud (self-described: Early-access tester across a TanStack Start site, Spring Boot and Angular projects, open-source pull requests, and internal CLI tools), Personal blog post, Substack, published Jul 14, 2025
  89. Kiro: First ImpressionsGuille Ojeda, Principal Innovation Architect at Caylent (AWS Premier Partner consultancy; a few weeks of partner access before launch), Company blog post, Caylent, published Jul 14, 2025

Jul 2025 to Oct 2026.

73 sources from practitioners, by month and sentiment.

The full readExplore all Kiro Signals5 praise themes, 6 concerns, 1 point of agreement and 2 disagreements across all three groups, with all 89 sources open to inspect.

Where It Fits

Where does Kiro belong in the stack?

Open Where It Fits: the Stack Field and the full map

Kiro is Core across Build, supports Plan and Validate, and touches Ship and Operate.

Business area
Product & Engineering
Function
Software Development
Operating stack
Agentic Software Development
Primary role
Spec-Driven Agentic IDE & CLI
Kiro beside the rest of its stackThe Stack Field, every product on every layer
FootprintKiro across the Agentic Software Development stack. Bar height is its role on each layer.

  1. Plan

    1. Work planning: Supports

      Work planning, supports. Specs create requirements.md or bugfix.md, then design.md and tracked tasks.md. Kiro runs independent tasks in parallel waves. The issue tracker retains the team's backlog and planning record.

  2. Build

    1. Codebase context: Supports

      Codebase context, supports. Kiro uses tree-sitter for 18 languages, optional LSP integration, and steering files to understand a repository. A separate tool handles cross-repository search.

    2. Coding: Core

      Coding, core. This is Kiro's primary role. It writes and changes code across a repository from a spec or a chat prompt, with subagents and an autonomous mode in cloud sessions.

    3. Agent runtime: Core

      Agent runtime, core. Kiro IDE, built on Code OSS, shares its agent with Kiro CLI, Kiro Web, and Mobile. ACP-compatible editors, including JetBrains IDEs, connect to that agent.

    4. Tool execution: Supports

      Tool execution, supports. Capability rules govern shell commands, MCP servers, and powers through allow, ask, and deny settings. Hooks run commands or prompts on agent events. Tool orchestration is a supporting role.

  3. Validate

    1. Debugging: Supports

      Debugging, supports. Bugfix specs record current and expected behavior plus what must stay unchanged. Kiro reads IDE diagnostics. Observability tools handle production debugging.

    2. Testing: Supports

      Testing, supports. Specs can generate property-based tests that check code against the requirements, and the agent writes and runs tests. Test infrastructure stays with dedicated tools.

    3. Code review: Supports

      Code review, supports. Headless Kiro CLI reviews code in CI/CD. Teams also build review agents and hooks. Their review process retains pull request review and merge approval.

    4. Application security: Touches

      Application security, touches. Permissions and .kiroignore restrict agent access. Kiro CLI asks before it loads an untrusted folder's hooks, agents, MCP servers, steering, or workflows. Isolated cloud sandboxes limit execution. A separate scanner handles application security.

  4. Ship

    1. Source control: Touches

      Source control, touches. Kiro Web clones GitHub and GitLab repositories server-side and opens pull or merge requests. Source control and branch policy stay with the Git host.

    2. CI/CD: Touches

      CI/CD, touches. Headless runs in pipelines use an API key. Kiro is not the team's build or deployment system.

  5. Operate

    1. Observability: Touches

      Observability, touches. Kiro CLI queries logs and metrics through AWS CLI or MCP servers when asked. Separate systems provide monitoring and alerts.

Market mapThe layers Kiro covers, and who else owns each one.

  1. Coding & implementation

    CoreBuild

  2. Agent interface & developer runtime

    CoreBuild

  3. Work planning & task decomposition

    SupportsPlan

  4. Codebase context & intelligence

    SupportsBuild

  5. Tool execution & integrations

    SupportsBuild

7 more layers on the full map. Core, Supports and Touches describe coverage. They say nothing about quality.

More on Kiro

  1. GILD ReviewGILD's evaluation, with the buying facts
  2. Research2 pieces
  3. Guides4 guides
  4. Operator Insights3 operator accounts
  5. Where It FitsOn the Agentic Software Development stack
  6. Related Products8 products