When AWS announced that Kiro is officially GA (Nov 17, 2025), I figured I’d skim the release notes, bookmark a few things, and play with the new toys over the weekend.
Yeah… that didn’t happen.
Because within a few hours, Kiro casually replaced one of my favorite CLIs ever — and I didn’t even see it coming.
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Kiro : More Than Just Another Update
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I’ve been a fan of Kiro for a while now — the vibe-coding experience, the spec-driven workflow, the smooth MCP integration, and those clever hooks that make everything feel almost alive.
But the GA release introduced something new that immediately stood out:
The brand-new Kiro CLI.
And not just as a standalone tool — it’s deeply woven into the Kiro IDE in a way that makes both feel smarter together.
Naturally, I planned to take it for a spin later.
Naturally, AWS had other plans for me.
😄Goodbye Q CLI… Hello Kiro CLI
While jumping through the docs, I noticed one line that made me blink twice:
Kiro CLI now replaces the Amazon Q Developer CLI.
Yep.
My go-to CLI — the one I’ve used day in, day out — was quietly swapped out for… another one of my favourite dev tools.
Honestly?
It felt like my IDE had staged a friendly coup.
⚡ The Upgrade Took Exactly One Command
If you’re already logged in to the Q CLI, upgrading is hilariously simple:
q update
That’s it. One command.
A second later, my entire dev environment was reborn as the Kiro CLI.
No broken configs.
No re-auth headaches.
Even my existing MCP setups recognized Kiro instantly.
AWS didn’t just ship an upgrade — they delivered a teleportation.
Why This Matters: Kiro Isn’t Just a Tool, It’s a Shift
Kiro isn’t just “a new AWS product.”
It feels like AWS is leaning all the way into conversational, intelligent, context-aware development.
And the secret sauce behind that shift?
Introducing Kiro Powers: The Feature That Changes Everything
This is where things get wild.
Modern AI tools have a big problem:
They’re smart, but not smart enough about your actual tools, frameworks, and workflows.
❌ Without context, AI agents guess
They don’t automatically know:
best practices for Stripe checkout
connection pooling patterns for Neon
how to structure Supabase calls
when to use idempotent keys
or what the “right” approach is for frameworks you don’t use every day
So you end up debugging your AI instead of debugging your code.
❌ With too much context, agents slow down
Load 5 MCP servers?
Congrats — your model now burns 50K+ tokens before writing a single line of code.
Your agent becomes “smart but sluggish,” drowning in irrelevant tool definitions.
❌ And AI dev tools today feel… fragmented
Claude Skills here.
Cursor rules there.
MCP configs everywhere.
Dynamic tool loading in its own world.
Switch IDEs? Redo part of it.
Developers want one thing:
“Just install Stripe and let my agent instantly know how to use Stripe correctly.”
Not:
“Configure eight different files across three clients and pray.”
⚙️ Kiro Powers Fix All of This
A Kiro power is basically:
A bundle of tools, context, expertise, and best practices — loaded only when you need them.
Like The Matrix, but for dev.
A power includes:
POWER.md — a steering brain that teaches the agent how to use the tool
MCP configuration — all the actual tool endpoints
Optional rules/hooks — behaviors and workflows
And the magic trick?
🟢 Powers load dynamically
Mention “checkout”? Stripe power activates.
Switch to “database”? Neon pops in, Stripe quietly steps away.
Jump to “deploy”? Netlify steps up.
Your context window stays clean.
Your agent stays fast.
Your tools feel alive.
Kiro launched with a seriously stacked partner lineup:
Stripe
Supabase
Neon
Figma
Postman
Netlify
Datadog
Dynatrace
Strands
Amazon Aurora
…with more on the way.
Plus the community has already started building:
SaaS builder powers
AWS CDK infrastructure powers
Aurora DSQL helpers
Instead of “finding the right MCP server,” you now just… install a power.
Your agent becomes an expert instantly.
🧑💻 What This Means for Me (and Probably You)
The moment Kiro CLI replaced Q CLI, I realized AWS wasn’t just iterating — they’re redefining the workflow.
This is dev tooling that adapts to you.
It listens. It loads context only when needed.
It knows best practices out of the box.
It makes agents feel more like collaborators rather than clever autocomplete.
And honestly?
It feels like the closest thing we have to a universal “developer brain” that plugs into your stack.
Wrapping Up
I started the day thinking I’d casually test a new CLI.
Instead, I watched one of my most-used tools transform into something smarter, faster, and genuinely exciting.
Kiro GA isn’t just an AWS release.
It’s a hint at where developer tooling is headed — unified context, dynamic intelligence, and agents that actually know what they’re doing.
And re:Invent 2025?
I’m suddenly way more curious about what surprises the Kiro team still has up their sleeve.
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