Spec-driven agentic IDE
How to use
Kiro.
Turning feature ideas into requirements, design, tasks, and implementation while preserving repository guidance and explicit review of agent changes.
Kiro is a agentic integrated development environment from AWS. Turning feature ideas into requirements, design, tasks, and implementation while preserving repository guidance and explicit review of agent changes. This guide covers the whole path in one place: official access, a first session that produces something reviewable, the checks that make output trustworthy, and the permissions worth limiting before you connect real work.
AI should make the work easier to inspect. If the workflow removes the source, the owner, or the review step, redesign the workflow.
Access & setup
Find, install, and sign in to Kiro
Get into the official Kiro experience with the right account and a setup you understand.
- 01
Start at https://kiro.dev/ and confirm the domain before entering account or payment information.
- 02
Availability: Kiro is a standalone agentic IDE with structured specs, steering files, hooks, agentic chat, MCP integrations, supervised review, and autopilot workflows.
- 03
A supported desktop system, a Kiro account, an authorized repository, and reviewed identity, extension, model, command, and optional AWS access.
- 04
Sign in with the account you intend to keep using, then review plan, data, notification, and permission settings.
- 05
Run one low-risk test task before connecting sensitive files, repositories, or workspace data.
- Use official download pages.
- Review permissions during setup.
- Keep installers and applications updated.
First session
Your first useful Kiro session
Learn the interaction loop using a small task with a clear outcome.
- 01
Install Kiro, sign in with the approved identity, and open a clean branch containing no exposed credentials.
- 02
Create a spec for one feature and review its requirements, design, and implementation tasks before coding.
- 03
Use supervised mode with a narrow trusted-command list while Kiro implements one task at a time.
- 04
Review and accept each diff, run trusted tests, and use checkpoints before any merge or deployment.
- State the outcome before the background.
- Provide the real source material.
- Review the result before expanding the task.
Quality control
Check the quality of Kiro output
Turn generated code into a change you would put your name on in review.
- 01
Restate the intended behaviour and the acceptance criteria before reading a single generated line.
- 02
Read the diff rather than the chat summary; the summary describes intent, the diff describes what actually changed.
- 03
Run the test suite, then write a test that would fail if the change were wrong, and confirm it passes for the right reason.
- 04
Check the edges the model tends to skip: error paths, null and empty cases, concurrency, and migration or rollback behaviour.
- 05
Trace every new dependency, network call, and file write, and confirm each one is genuinely required.
- Review the diff, never the description of the diff.
- A passing test suite proves the tests pass, not that the change is correct.
- Keep changes small enough that a human can actually review them.
Privacy & permissions
Use Kiro safely
Give the tool enough repository access to help, and no more than that.
- 01
Decide what the tool may read and what it may write before connecting a repository.
- 02
Scope tokens and integrations to the narrowest repository, branch, and permission set that still works.
- 03
Keep secrets out of the context window: use environment variables and secret stores, never inline credentials.
- 04
Require review before generated code touches authentication, payments, permissions, migrations, or deletion paths.
- 05
Audit what the integration retained after the session, and revoke access that is no longer needed.
- Supervised and Autopilot modes have similar underlying file and command access; supervised mode adds a review-and-revert workflow rather than a stronger sandbox. Use repository-scoped authentication, temporary AWS credentials, carefully bounded trusted-command prefixes, protected paths, reviewed extensions and MCP servers, human-approved specs, checkpoints, and independent tests. Never use a universal command trust pattern on untrusted content.
- Follow your organisation's approved-use policy.
- Never treat fluent output as authorization to act.
Core workflows
Step-by-step ways to use Kiro for the work it does best.
Each workflow is a separate guide with its own steps and review checkpoints.
Turn an idea into requirements, design, tasks, and code through explicit review gates.
↗ 02 WorkflowConfigure safe Kiro steering and hooksGive Kiro durable repository context and useful automation without creating hidden commands or stale architectural rules.
↗Official references
Check the current product documentation.
Features, plan limits, availability, and data controls change. These official pages are the starting points used for this guide.