Modern app development often starts fast but hits a wall when it’s time to move from prototype to production. Requirements become fuzzy, documentation lags, and teams struggle to maintain clarity.
Kiro is a new agentic IDE from AWS that aims to act as both a creative accelerator and disciplined project manager, bridging the gap between rapid prototyping and reliable deployment.
What Makes Kiro Unique?
Kiro introduces spec-driven development, a method that puts clear, traceable specifications at the heart of your workflow. This isn’t just about coding faster, it’s about building smarter, with every decision and requirement documented for easy reference. Teams using Kiro can maintain code quality, ensure long-term maintainability, and quickly onboard new contributors.
Specs and Hooks: The Power Duo
1. Specs: Clarity from the Start
With Kiro, specs act as living blueprints. Prompt Kiro with a feature idea like "Add a review system for products" and it generates user stories and acceptance criteria in EARS notation. This process highlights assumptions, clarifies what needs to be built, and aligns everyone on the end goal.
2. Automated Technical Design
From these specs, Kiro generates technical designs tailored to your codebase. Expect data flow diagrams, TypeScript interfaces, database schemas, and API endpoints, all automatically mapped out. This eliminates uncertainty, smooths team handoffs, and keeps everyone on the same page.
3. Transforming Task Management
Kiro breaks features into sequenced tasks and sub-tasks, linking each to specific requirements. Tasks come with unit tests, loading states, integration checks, and accessibility standards built in. Developers get transparency through code diffs and agent execution history, making it easy to track progress and changes.
Hooks: Automation Without the Hassle
Forget tedious manual checklists. Kiro’s hooks are event-driven automations that activate when you save, add, or edit files. Hooks update tests, refresh documentation, and scan for security issues in real time. Want to enforce the Single Responsibility Principle? Set a hook, and Kiro takes care of ongoing compliance automatically.
Comprehensive AI IDE Features
Kiro covers all the essentials of a modern AI IDE. It supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP), offers customizable steering rules to shape AI behavior, and provides agentic chat for instant coding help. Built atop Code OSS, Kiro retains your familiar VS Code settings and plugins but layers in powerful, agent-driven capabilities.
Redefining Collaborative Software Development
By embedding specs and documentation into the core workflow, Kiro helps teams tackle software’s toughest challenges: alignment, tech debt, and knowledge retention. Living documentation reduces the risk of fragmented processes and undocumented code, paving the way for scalable, maintainable projects.
Start Building with Kiro
Kiro is now in free preview for Mac, Windows, and Linux, supporting all major programming languages. An interactive tutorial walks you through building a feature from spec to deployment. Developers are encouraged to try Kiro, join the Discord community, and help shape the future of AI-driven software development.
Kiro fuses AI-powered innovation with the rigor of spec-driven workflows, potentially making it easier than ever for teams to create robust, production-ready software in partnership with an AI agent.
Source: kiro.dev/blog
Kiro: The AWS Agentic IDE Transforming Developers Build Production-Ready Software