AWS brings vibe coding to the Enterprise with spec-driven Kiro IDE tool

AWS has introduced Kiro, an "agentic IDE" designed to bridge the gap between the excitement of prompt-based prototyping and the practical demands of production software. According to Kiro product lead Nikhil Swaminathan, the tool aims to bring structure, rigour and automation to the modern, AI-powered coding process.

Swaminathan describes the appeal of recent AI tools, saying, "Prompt, prompt, prompt, and you have a working application. It's fun and feels like magic. But getting it to production requires more." He outlines the typical stumbling blocks: "What assumptions did the model make when building it? What edge-cases did it cover? How did it handle errors? Requirements are fuzzy and you can't tell if the application meets them."

Kiro is designed to solve these problems by introducing what its creators call "spec-driven development." As the team puts it, "Kiro is great at 'vibe coding' but goes way beyond that - Kiro's strength is getting those prototypes into production systems with features such as specs and hooks."

Swaminathan explains how it works: "Start with a prompt: 'Add a review system for products.' Kiro translates this into a set of user stories with EARS-style acceptance criteria." He says Kiro then generates artefacts including "a data-flow diagram, TypeScript interfaces, a database schema, and API definitions."

The system's approach includes automatically specifying essential features for each user story. Swaminathan writes, "Kiro automatically includes requirements like mobile responsiveness, accessibility, loading states, and tests in the spec." Tasks are then "sequenced correctly and connected to requirements."

Importantly, the specs remain in sync as the code evolves. Swaminathan notes, "Developers can author code and ask Kiro to update specs or manually update specs to refresh tasks. This solves the common problem where developers stop updating original artifacts during implementation."

To automate repetitive work, Kiro introduces "agent hooks." These are "event-driven automations" that "trigger based on events like file saves or deletions." As Swaminathan puts it, "When you save a React component, hooks update the test file. When you modify API endpoints, hooks refresh README files. When you're ready to commit, security hooks scan for leaked credentials." He describes the benefit: "It's like having an experienced developer catching things you miss or completing boilerplate tasks."

These hooks are also collaborative by design. Swaminathan explains, "Once this hook is committed to Git, it enforces the coding standard across my entire team - whenever anyone adds a new component, the agent automatically validates it against the guidelines."

Kiro is built on top of Code OSS, meaning it is "compatible with existing VS Code settings and Open VSX plugins." It supports "Model Context Protocol (MCP)," agentic chat, and multiple context providers, including "files, URLs and document uploads."

Looking ahead, Swaminathan and AWS VP of Developer Experience & Agents Deepak Singh set out an ambitious vision for Kiro. They write, "We want to tackle the root causes of pain in software development - clarity of design, alignment with requirements, technical debt, code reviews, and knowledge sharing."

Kiro is available in a preview release for Mac, Windows and Linux, supporting most programming languages. Swaminathan invites developers to experience its approach: "We invite you to try Kiro and share feedback. We're just getting started, and your input will help shape the future of agentic development."

By combining the "magic" of AI-powered coding with structured specs and event-driven automation, Kiro is positioning itself as a tool for developers seeking to move quickly without sacrificing discipline or reliability.