Amazon AWS Debuts Kiro, an AI IDE That Builds Code From Specifications

AWS has introduced Kiro, an AI-driven integrated development environment designed to embed software planning and documentation into the coding process. Kiro runs on a forked version of Code OSS, the open-source foundation of Visual Studio Code, but layers in what AWS calls “spec-driven development.” This approach enables developers to generate requirements, design documents, and implementation tasks directly from natural language prompts. It aims to steer developers away from “vibe coding” toward more maintainable software practices.

Kiro’s standout feature is its agentic hooks that activate on key file events, like saving or committing code. These agents automatically update test cases, documentation, and even security scans in real time. For developers, this means less time manually updating peripheral artifacts and more consistent project hygiene across teams.

The product enters the market with a flexible pricing model. A free preview tier offers 50 monthly interactions. Pro and Pro+ subscriptions expand this limit to 1,000 and 3,000 interactions per user per month, priced at $19 and $39 respectively. Kiro positions AWS not just as a cloud provider but as a contender in AI-augmented development tooling. This move could appeal especially to enterprises that need to enforce structured engineering workflows while still benefiting from rapid AI-assisted code generation.