Release2026-08-04

Kiro, the AWS coding assistant, replaced the three separate agent engines behind its editor, terminal and web clients with a single one that all four clients now share, including a new iOS app. Features that used to exist in only one place, such as spec-driven development, custom agents and hooks, now work everywhere from the same configuration files, and permissions use one rule language based on Cedar. The editor version is generally available, while the terminal, web and phone versions are early access or preview.

What changed

Kiro's IDE, CLI and web clients each ran a separately built agent, in TypeScript, Rust and Python, with incompatible session storage, permission syntax and feature sets.

What it unlocks

Using spec-driven development, custom agents and hooks with the same configuration files in the IDE, terminal, browser and iOS app, and writing one permission rule that covers every tool able to read files.

  • more than 20 agent-callable methods, 15 client-callable methods and 20 notification types added on top of base ACP
  • ACP reached 1.0 in June 2026
  • live across all four Kiro clients

What you need to act on it

  • Kiro IDE 1.0, with migration steps for existing setups
  • Kiro CLI v3 is early access, started with kiro-cli --v3
  • Kiro on the web and Kiro for iOS are in preview, iOS by early access request

Send this to someone who needs it

Shares the story and its sources. Nothing about you.

What does this mean for your job?

This is the story as everyone gets it. Once a week we send you the version written for your role — what changed, why it matters for the work you actually do, and one thing to try. Free while we tune it.