Kiro is AWS's entry into the agentic IDE category, and its defining idea is spec-driven development: rather than jumping straight from a prompt to generated code the way most AI editors do, Kiro first turns a request into a written specification and task breakdown, which a developer can review and adjust before any code gets written. The goal is catching misunderstandings about requirements before they turn into wasted generated code.
It keeps that spec in sync with the code as a project evolves, so the written requirements don't drift into a stale document nobody updates, a problem that plagues a lot of real-world specs even without AI involved. It's built on a VS Code-compatible foundation, letting it reuse the existing extension ecosystem rather than requiring an entirely new one.
AWS offers a free tier with usage limits and paid plans for heavier use, positioning Kiro as a more structured, planning-first alternative to the straight-to-code approach of tools like Cursor or Windsurf, aimed at developers and teams who've been burned by agents generating confidently wrong code from an underspecified prompt.