Kiro

Kiro is Amazon Web Services' AI coding agent IDE, launched in preview in 2025. It takes a spec-driven approach to AI coding: instead of generating code from a single prompt, Kiro first produces a human-readable specification (requirements, design, implementation tasks) and iterates on that spec with the developer before writing code.

## What Kiro Does Well

**Spec-driven development** is Kiro's key design decision. When a developer describes a feature, Kiro doesn't immediately write code — it first generates a structured specification: user requirements, system design, and a task breakdown. The developer reviews and edits the spec before code generation begins. This approach catches misunderstandings early and produces more predictable, better-scoped implementations.

**Autonomous task execution** carries spec tasks to completion without constant prompting. Kiro can implement multiple tasks sequentially, run tests, fix failing tests, and iterate — producing a working implementation rather than a code snippet that requires manual integration.

**AWS-native integration** gives Kiro deep hooks into AWS services. It understands the developer's AWS account context, can provision resources, and generates infrastructure code (CDK, CloudFormation) alongside application code.

**"Hooks" automation** triggers background agents to run automatically on file save, test run, or other IDE events — applying consistent code review, documentation generation, or security checks without manual invocation.

## Who Kiro Is For

Kiro targets developers building on AWS who want more structured AI coding assistance than GitHub Copilot provides. It is available in free preview (2025); production pricing to be announced. Works as a standalone IDE or VS Code extension.