[AWS] Power up Kiro with Kiro powers

This article is a machine translation of the contents of the following URL, which I wrote in Japanese:

https://qiita.com/Nana_777/items/27742e76bf47f9aa5fd5

Introduction

This is the sixth post in the Japan AWS Top Engineers Advent Calendar 2025.

On December 3, 2025, powers was announced as a new feature for Kiro.
In this post, we'll demonstrate powers from installation to execution.

↓ Click here for the Japan AWS Top Engineers Advent Calendar 2025.

https://qiita.com/advent-calendar/2025/aws-top-engineers

What is kiro powers...

For more details, please read the article below, but I'll share my impressions after trying it out.
What is Kiro Powers?

• An enhanced version of MCP
• Kiro and powers work more closely together to do various things
• Installing powers on Kiro is easy, with a UI similar to installing a VSCode extension
• Kiro performs requested operations and settings even if you don't know how to use the connected devices
• It's just like "learning kung fu" in The Matrix
• While traditional MCP servers preload all tools, powers are activated only when relevant
• Instead of bulk loading, tokens are dynamically loaded as needed, eliminating waste.

https://aws.amazon.com/jp/blogs/news/introducing-powers/

↓ Powers page on the Kiro homepage

https://kiro.dev/powers/

How to add powers

How to add from a web page

You can install the powers introduced on the Kiro page with one click from the following site.

https://kiro.dev/powers/

Kiro IDE How to add it from the left menu

There's a Kiro Power icon in Kiro's left menu (if it's not there, you'll need to update Kiro). Selecting it will show you the current installation status of Kiro Powers and a list of officially recommended Kiro Powers that you can install.

You can also select an already created power from the list of recommendations.

Recommended power You can also add any custom powers not listed here, such as those published on GitHub.

Add and try Postman powers

Try one-click installation from the web page

After updating Kiro's IDE to the latest version, click "Add to Kiro +" in Postman to add the power.

Once the installation begins, your browser will transition to the installation screen.

A confirmation dialog will appear in your browser. Select "Open Kiro."

onaws.com/0/192949/d9867cbe-d5f6-4e77-a6df-3c1d4b463694.png)

The Postman power addition screen opens in the Kiro IDE.

Continue the installation in the Kiro IDE screen

Select "+ Install" next to the powers displayed in the Kiro IDE to begin the installation.
A security warning dialog about changing environment variables will appear, but select Accept.

A dialog box will appear confirming successful installation.

You can confirm that the power has been added in the KiroIDE MCP list.

The definitions are written in mcp.json. While other MPC server definitions are written directly under "mcpServers," powers are written under "mcpServers" within the "powers" definition.
*In this case, we're using Postman powers, so setting the Postman API key obtained from your Postman account in "POSTMAN_API_KEY" completes the setup.

Trying out Postman powers

I asked Kiro via chat how to run Postman powers.
Postman powers were used, and he confirmed the power settings and configured them on Postman.

I was able to confirm that a workspace had been created in Postman.

Try running the API with Kiro's Postman powers

Try it with the API defined in the CDK created in the previous article

This time, we have the API configuration tested in the previous CDK article, so we will test this API.
↓ Previous article on creating an API with CDK

https://dev.to/aws-builders/aws-devtools-evangelism-cdk-edition-4bih

Chat with Kiro and request API testing using Postman powers

Let's also ask Kiro to run the API test.

After requesting the API test, Postman's powers were used to create test code in Postman, and the test was executed.

I checked the Postman screen and found that the API call settings and test code had been added.

Conclusion

Kiro Powers is great.
I still need to read and understand the documentation, but it looks like I can easily integrate Kiro with other tools to power it up.
In this case, I used Postman, but it's also great that powers allows me to use natural language even if I'm not familiar with the tools called by powers. This also reduces the effort required for people to learn detailed instructions for the tools that need to be integrated.