Kiro

Kiro is AWS's agentic development platform, built around spec-driven development: a prompt becomes a written spec of requirements, design decisions and sequenced tasks, and Kiro checks the finished code against that spec with property-based tests. Pick it when you want an agent that works from a reviewable plan across an IDE, a terminal and cloud sandboxes, rather than from a chat thread. It is proprietary, built and operated by AWS, and has a free plan.

Kiro reached general availability in November 2025, when the Kiro CLI launched alongside the IDE. That CLI replaces the Amazon Q Developer CLI, which AWS's docs say "has been rebranded to Kiro". Amazon Q Developer stopped taking new signups on May 15, 2026, and its IDE plugins and paid subscriptions reach end of support on April 30, 2027.

Highlights

• Specs before code. A spec holds requirements, design decisions and implementation tasks, and Requirements Analysis flags contradictions and gaps before any code is written.
• Property-based testing. Kiro turns requirements into executable properties and runs them against generated inputs, catching cases "you wouldn't test deliberately".
• One harness, every surface. The desktop IDE, the kiro-cli terminal agent, Kiro Web and the open-source Kiro Crew workspace share one agent harness, so specs, steering, permissions, hooks, MCP servers and custom agents follow the project. An iOS app for paid plans launched in June 2026.
• Cloud sessions. A task starts in a managed sandbox, keeps running while you're away, and resumes from the IDE, CLI, Web or mobile; the feature launched in preview in August 2026.
• Extensibility and guardrails. Hooks, Steering, Powers, MCP, custom agents and Agent Skills extend it; permissions, .kiroignore and checkpoints you can rewind keep it in bounds.
• Model choice with an Auto router. Claude Opus, Sonnet and Haiku models (Claude Opus 5 since July 2026), DeepSeek v3.2 and MiniMax M2.5, plus GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna with credit multipliers, or an Auto mode that routes for you.

In an AI-assisted workflow

The terminal agent installs with one command, per Kiro's docs:

curl -fsSL https://cli.kiro.dev/install | bash
cd my-project
kiro-cli

Then work spec-first:

> Write a spec for password reset by email: requirements, design, and tasks
> Before we start, list any contradictions or gaps in the requirements
> Implement the first task and check it against the spec's properties

That spec, tasks, implement loop is the one our spec-driven development guide walks through with any agent. If you'd rather stay in Claude Code and borrow only Kiro's correctness idea, the Property Test Designer skill designs property-based tests that assert invariants across hundreds of random inputs.

How it compares to Cursor, Antigravity and Claude Code

Cursor is the closer rival for editor-first work. Antigravity is Google's answer, with a free Individual plan whose models include Claude Sonnet and Opus 4.6. Kiro's distinct bet is structure: the spec, not the chat, is the unit of work.

Good to know

• License: proprietary. The kirodotdev/Kiro GitHub repo is a public issue and feedback tracker, not the product source. Only Kiro Crew (kirodotdev/KiroCrew), announced in August 2026, is Apache-2.0.
• Platforms: the IDE runs on macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), 64-bit Windows 10 and 11, and Linux (Ubuntu 24+, Debian 13+, Fedora 40+, Arch, Mint 22+). The CLI runs on macOS, Windows 11 (PowerShell) and Linux with glibc 2.34+ or musl; Windows support arrived with Kiro CLI 2.0 in April 2026.
• Pricing: Plans, as of September 2026 from Kiro's pricing page: Free ($0, 50 credits a month, open-weight models and Claude Sonnet 4.5), Pro ($20 per user per month, 1,000 credits), Pro+ ($40, 2,000 credits), Pro Max ($100, 5,000 credits), Power ($200, 10,000 credits) and custom Enterprise with SSO, centralized billing and analytics. Add-on credits cost $0.04 each on paid plans and expire 12 months after purchase. Usage is metered in credits, and Free-tier model access is also subject to rate limits.
• Recent changes: Kiro Web launched in preview in May 2026 and reached general availability on September 1, 2026, cloud sessions in August 2026, and a free year of Kiro for students worldwide in September 2026.

For the wider field, see the best Claude Code alternatives and the best GitHub Copilot alternatives.