Amazon just threw its hat into the AI-powered developer tools ring with Kiro, a new IDE that combines traditional software development with generative AI and autonomous agent workflows. It’s now available in public preview, and during this period, developers can try it for free with access to essential agentic features.
What is Kiro?
Kiro is designed as an agentic IDE—meaning it goes beyond autocomplete or code suggestions. It focuses on:
- Spec-driven development — prompting agents to draft and maintain project specs.
- Auto-synced documentation — keeping docs up to date as code changes.
- Hooks and triggers — to run actions automatically on events like file save.
- Claude integration — the system is backed by Anthropic’s Claude AI models.
The goal is simple: turn fast “vibe-coded” prototypes into production-ready codebases with structure, consistency, and automation.
How to Try It
During the preview, anyone can sign up and use Kiro at no cost. You’ll need a GitHub or Google account to log in. Just head over to kiro.dev and download the version for your platform. Limits apply during the preview, but most core features are available.
Pricing details for Pro or advanced tiers are listed, but it’s likely these may change once Kiro exits preview.
A Growing AI IDE Battle
With GitHub Copilot, Google IDX, Cursor, and now Kiro, the AI IDE competition just got sharper. Amazon seems to be directly targeting the developer crowd looking for more than just suggestions—Kiro positions itself as a full coding assistant, able to handle tasks from spec to deployment.
Unlike some tools that focus purely on code generation, Kiro emphasizes structure, process, and production readiness.
Final Thoughts
I tried it, and was quickly greeted with a few rough edges some code suggestions weren’t applied correctly, and there’s currently no clear way to discard them. These are the kinds of small UX details we’ve come to take for granted in tools like Cursor. That said, getting free access to Claude 4 makes up for a lot.
It’s still early, but Amazon launching a Claude-powered IDE with free access during preview shows how seriously it’s taking the generative AI shift in software development. While pricing and limits might evolve, this is a solid opportunity for developers to get a feel for where Amazon is heading with its AI tooling.
Also worth noting while Kiro is currently backed by Claude, there’s a strong chance it may support other models in the future, like GPT, Gemini, or even Groq, depending on how the ecosystem evolves.
Definitely worth keeping an eye on. The IDE wars are heating up and Kiro just added fuel to the fire.