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Kiro is Amazon’s powerful new AI-powered IDE built on top of Visual Studio Code that’s changing how developers approach software creation.

Unlike typical AI coding assistants, Kiro focuses on structured specifications over conversational prompts, integrating artificial intelligence directly into your development workflow.

What Makes Kiro Special

  • Spec-Driven Development: Kiro accelerates your specification workflow by generating comprehensive user stories, data flow diagrams, TypeScript interfaces, database schemas, and API endpoints from a single prompt
  • Technical Design Intelligence: After analyzing your codebase and approved specs, Kiro generates detailed design documents and sequences tasks based on dependencies
  • Seamless Integration: Built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), Kiro creates a cohesive development experience by connecting various development tools

Real-World Application

When you need to add functionality like a review system for products, Kiro generates complete user stories for viewing, creating, filtering, and rating reviews—each including EARS notation acceptance criteria. This structured approach helps you build better software faster.

Kiro is particularly valuable for:

  • Large projects with complex codebases
  • Working with monorepos
  • Onboarding into unfamiliar codebases
  • Getting faster feedback on changes

Technical Foundation

Kiro leverages Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet models as its default large language models, with plans to support additional models in the future. Importantly, Kiro prioritizes security by ensuring all code execution remains local unless you explicitly allow data to be sent to the cloud.

Why It Matters

Kiro represents Amazon’s significant entry into the AI-powered developer tools market. By focusing on structured specifications rather than just code completion, Kiro helps reduce friction throughout the development process. The result is a more efficient workflow that helps you build better software with greater confidence and speed.

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