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Amazon Q Developer Workflow Playbook: Rules, Approvals, and Reviewed Changes

How teams still on Q Developer brief it with project rules, limit agentic chat to approved tools and read-only AWS roles, and review its changes and findings before merge.

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2 min read
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13 cited
In this piece
Amazon Q Developer+10 Mixed

Give Q Developer written project rules, let it run only the tools and AWS roles your team approved, and review and test every change before it merges. These habits apply until the IDE plugins end on April 30, 2027, and they carry over to Kiro.

When you need this

  • Engineers use Q's agentic chat every day, but what it returns depends on who wrote the prompt.
  • Q writes code that ignores the team's conventions, and reviewers fix the same issues again and again.
  • Engineers have connected Q to AWS accounts and MCP servers without agreeing what it may change.
  • Q's code review and GitHub review comments pile up on pull requests and nobody decides which ones matter.

Evaluation criteria

  1. Before work: write the project rules

    Does Q know the project's commands, conventions, and boundaries before it starts?

    Look forPut Markdown rules in .amazonq/rules at the project root, by hand or through the Rules button in chat. Q adds them to every project chat. Verify compliance after restarts. In May 2026, a Visual Studio user reported that Q ignored a rule requiring confirmation before edits until reminded. Kiro CLI also reads .amazonq folders.

  2. Before work: size the task to the context

    Is the task small enough for Q to hold the files it needs?

    Look forSend simple changes directly. For complex work, ask Q to write a plan first. One engineer saves the plan to a Markdown file, clears context, then executes each phase. Another found that C files of 20,000 to 100,000 lines exceeded Q's context.

  3. During work: approve tools

    Which commands and MCP servers may Q run, and who decided?

    Look forMaintain an approved MCP server list. Disable MCP elsewhere through the organization setting AWS added in August 2025. Keep command approvals on and treat files as untrusted input. In August 2025, a researcher used prompt injection to execute code through commands Q classified as read-only, including find. AWS fixed the vulnerability. Recheck approvals after updates. A May 2026 Visual Studio report found that an MCP tool's Always Allow setting reverted to Ask after a refresh.

  4. During work: limit AWS permissions

    What can Q change in your AWS accounts?

    Look forGive Q read-only AWS roles by default. It can inspect logs and resources without changing them. Use IAM policies and service control policies to restrict Q features in the console.

  5. Before merge: review and test

    Does a Q change carry the same evidence a human change would?

    Look forRun CI before human review. Q checks static application security testing (SAST) findings, secrets, infrastructure as code, quality, deployment risk, and dependencies. Auto reviews accept up to 200 KB of source, and full reviews accept 50 MB. One engineer pairs Q with a separate pull request reviewer because Q's review works like a smart linter that cannot discuss a change. Write down which findings block a merge.

Questions to ask vendors

  1. Which repositories have an .amazonq/rules folder today, and who keeps it current?
  2. Which MCP servers are approved, and is MCP disabled for everyone else?
  3. Which AWS roles may Q use from the IDE, and are any of them writable?
  4. Which Q review findings block a merge, and who triages the rest?

Red flags

  • No rules files, so each engineer repeats conventions in every prompt.
  • Q connected to AWS profiles with write access on developer laptops.
  • Q review comments merged or dismissed without anyone reading the finding.
  • No plan for which of these habits moves to Kiro after April 30, 2027.

Products in this piece

Sources

Official documentation
7
Public source
6
  1. Amazon Q Developer docs: Creating project rulesOfficial documentationdocs.aws.amazon.com
  2. Amazon Q Developer docs: Using Amazon Q Developer in the IDEOfficial documentationdocs.aws.amazon.com
  3. Amazon Q Developer docs: Reviewing code with Amazon Q DeveloperOfficial documentationdocs.aws.amazon.com
  4. Amazon Q Developer docs: Amazon Q Developer for GitHub (Preview)Official documentationdocs.aws.amazon.com
  5. Amazon Q Developer docs: Manage access to Amazon Q Developer with policiesOfficial documentationdocs.aws.amazon.com
  6. Amazon Q Developer docs: Document historyOfficial documentationdocs.aws.amazon.com
  7. Kiro docs: Upgrading from Q CLIOfficial documentationkiro.dev
  8. GitHub issue: Amazon Q does not follow rules (May 1, 2026)Public sourcegithub.com
  9. Hacker News: 0x457 on having Q write a plan file and execute it phase by phase (Jun 25, 2025)Public sourcenews.ycombinator.com
  10. Hacker News: gibspaulding on Amazon Q and legacy C modules (Jun 26, 2025)Public sourcenews.ycombinator.com
  11. Embrace The Red: Amazon Q Developer, Remote Code Execution with Prompt Injection (Aug 19, 2025)Public sourceembracethered.com
  12. GitHub issue: Always Allow option not persisted for MCP server tools (May 1, 2026)Public sourcegithub.com
  13. r/aws: aviboy2006 on Amazon Q's code review working like a linter (Aug 11, 2025)Public sourcereddit.com

Keep reading

  1. Buyer guideAmazon Q Developer Data, Region, and Indemnity ChecklistWhich tier trains on your content, where each feature stores it, how to opt an organization out, and what the AWS Service Terms indemnity covers.
  2. Buyer guideMoving from Amazon Q Developer to KiroWhat changes for Q Developer CLI and IDE plugin users, how Q Developer Pro seats map to Kiro tiers, and which transformation jobs to finish. Both plugins and paid subscriptions end on April 30, 2027; settle the move before then.
  3. ResearchAmazon Q Developer's End of Support: What Ends, What Stays, and WhenAWS ends Q Developer's IDE plugins and paid seats on April 30, 2027. Every dated step since the CLI moved to Kiro in November 2025, and what stays in the console and chat apps.
Read the research