Kiro, a new AI-powered Integrated Development Environment (IDE) built on the open-source foundation of VS Code by a team from Amazon, is now available in preview for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Similar to tools like Warp, OpenAI’s Codex, and ‘vibe coding’ darling Cursor, Kiro integrates AI agents into the development workflow as an AI pair programmer not only able to turn ideas into production-ready code but handle mundane and routine tasks too.
Rather than immediately generate code from a raw prompt, Kiro will turn the request into a “spec” in which requirements, design, and tasks are laid out before code is written, a process Kiro’s developers describe as going from “vibe coding to viable code”.
Once the “spec”, a living and updatable document, is good to go, Kiro breaks the feature request down into a sequence of tasks and sub-tasks. Again, developers get to audit, refine and monitor this before and during action.
Kiro also uses “hooks”. These are event-driven automations which trigger on specific actions, like saving a file or committing code to a repo. Hooks can be used to generate documentation, update APIs, run security checks, check for errors, and so on.
AI coding and agentic workflows are becoming ever-more common. In any skills market, keeping pace with trends is a pragmatic necessity: employers are hiring fewer people due to expectations AI will make a smaller group of developers “more productive” (even if stats don’t back that up).
“Through Kiro, we reinvented how developers work with AI agents. We pioneered spec-driven development, where Kiro turns your prompt into structured requirements, design, and tasks that are then implemented by agents,” the team, working within Amazon Web Services (AWS), says.
Beyond specs and hooks, Kiro supports the Model Context Protocol for specialised tools, steering rules for AI behaviour, and (naturally) includes an embedded chatbot mode for questions (albeit with file and document context).
As Kiro is built on Code OSS, Microsoft’s vanilla codebase on which it builds VS Code, it supports VS Code settings, Open VSX plugins and other kinds of AI features.
Pricing, Platforms, and Availability
Kiro is free to use with “generous limits” during its preview period, so as to enable users to try things out properly before hitting bumpers. Once out of preview, Kiro will offer an encumbered Free tier, in hopes users shell out for paid Pro or Pro+ plans.
You can download Kiro for Ubuntu as a 64-bit DEB package or a standalone binary that will run on most Linux distributions without effort. Packages for Windows and macOS are also available.
Kiro can’t be used offline, and requires a sign-in with one of four sign-in providers (e.g., Google, GitHub,) to be used. A step-by-step tutorial is included to help introduce the workflow and key features.
Currently, Kiro only supports English prompt/specs/hooks but more language support is planned — and on programming languages, it supports most used by developers including Python, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, C#, Go, Rust, PHP, Ruby, Kotlin, and more.