Amazon Web Services has blocked new signups for the Amazon Q Developer IDE plugin from May 15, 2026, announcing its replacement: Kiro, a spec-driven agentic IDE. Full IDE plugin support ends April 30, 2027, giving existing users a transition window of approximately one year.
What Kiro is
Kiro is built around the concept of Specs — natural-language documents that describe requirements, architecture decisions, and implementation constraints. Instead of writing code directly or prompting line-by-line, developers write a Spec describing what they want to build. Kiro's agent reads the Spec and autonomously generates the full implementation, including files, functions, edge cases, and component wiring. The Spec becomes a persistent, version-controllable artifact that explains intent alongside the code.
Hooks: automated quality gates
Hooks are Kiro's event-driven automation layer. They trigger on file system events such as file save or git commit. On save, a Hook might run tests, lint code, or update documentation automatically. On commit, a Hook might run security scans or verify that the implementation aligns with the Spec. Hooks embed quality gates directly into the development lifecycle without requiring separate CI/CD configuration.
Technical foundation
Kiro is built as a VS Code-compatible IDE, preserving existing extensions, keybindings, and workspace configurations. The agent layer runs on Amazon Bedrock with access to Claude, Amazon Nova, and other foundation models. Deep AWS integration enables direct infrastructure provisioning and deployment from within the IDE.
Why it matters
Amazon's shift from Q Developer to Kiro represents a strategic repositioning — from an AI assistant that helps developers write code to an agent that executes full software development from high-level specifications. For AWS-centric engineering teams, Kiro offers a tighter loop between requirements, implementation, and deployment on AWS infrastructure.