Summary of AWS re:Invent 2025 - Kiro: Your agentic IDE for spec-driven development

Evolution of Agentic AI

• Speakers discussed the evolution of agentic AI and how it is transforming software development
• Started with IDE plugins, then agentic IDEs like Kiro that combine spec-driven development and vibe coding
• Emergence of protocols for agent-to-agent communication, enabling more complex agent orchestration
• Definition of an "agentic" agent: ability to perform tests asynchronously, have autonomy and agency, and be "atomic" (bespoke and composable)
• Goal is to create "Jarvis-like" assistants that can handle increasingly complex tasks and free up developers

Importance of Spec-Driven Development

• Spec-driven development helps bridge the gap between business and technology teams
• Allows faster iteration on requirements and designs
• Enables smaller teams to deliver bigger outcomes by leveraging AI tools

Kiro: An Agentic IDE

• Kiro is an IDE purpose-built for AI agent development, combining spec-driven and vibe coding approaches
• Provides tools to manage context, load files, terminal output, and select optimal AI models
• Includes features like "steering files" to provide rules and guidance to the AI agents
• Supports "Kiro Powers" - pre-built packages that combine MCPs, steering files, and other configurations

Delta Airlines' Experience with Kiro

• Delta adopted Kiro as part of their developer toolchain, building on the trust established with the earlier Q Developer tool
• Used a "dev champion" model to scale Kiro adoption across their developer community
• Kiro enabled faster delivery of production-ready code, better alignment between business and technology teams
• Transformed backlog grooming sessions into "Kiro spec design" sessions, reducing time and friction

Key Benefits Observed

• Developers able to focus more on architecture and design, rather than implementation details
• Faster delivery of features, with smaller teams able to achieve more
• Bridged gap between business and technology, enabling shared understanding and language
• 948% growth in adoption of the earlier Q Developer tool, demonstrating developer trust

Kiro Demo

• Demonstrated Kiro's spec-driven development workflow, including:
  • Generating requirements documents from natural language prompts
  • Automatically creating design documents with diagrams and pseudocode
  • Generating tasks and syncing them to Jira
  • Leveraging agent hooks to automate updates between local and remote environments
• Showed how Kiro can be used both in the IDE and through a command-line interface
• Highlighted Kiro's ability to format output, revert checkpoints, and generate commit messages

Getting Started with Kiro

• Kiro Powers, announced at re:Invent, provide pre-built packages to accelerate agent development
• Recommended attending Nil's session DVT228 to learn more about Kiro Powers
• Encouraged attendees to download Kiro and provide feedback to help shape its continued development