Migrate from Amazon Q Developer

Amazon Q Developer is winding down on a published timeline, and Kiro is where it went. Kiro CLI became the official successor to Q Developer CLI on 17 November 2025, and the migration is deliberately gentle: your q commands still work.

This chapter covers the dates that apply to you, what carries over, what is genuinely new, and the exact steps for each IDE. The backstory is in History.

The timeline

Date	What happened
17 November 2025	Kiro CLI v1.20.0 shipped as the official successor to Amazon Q Developer CLI, the same day Kiro reached general availability
Weeks after	Existing Q Developer CLI installations were rebranded and upgraded to Kiro CLI
15 May 2026	New Q Developer signups closed: Free Tier via Builder ID and new Console subscriptions
30 April 2027	IDE plugins and paid subscriptions reach end of support

That last date is the one to plan against. It gave teams a twelve-month runway onto Kiro, and a good chunk of it has already passed. If you are reading this in late 2026, you have months, not years.

What carries over

Your q commands. The q entry points are preserved. Scripts, aliases, and habits survive.

Your CLI configuration. It moved from ~/.aws/amazonq to ~/.kiro, automatically. The CLI also still reads legacy in-project .amazonq folders.

Everything Q Developer actually did. Inline suggestions, chat, and code generation all exist in Kiro. You are not giving anything up in exchange for the new features.

Your AWS identity. AWS Builder ID and IAM Identity Center are both sign-in options in Kiro, alongside GitHub and Google.

What is new

This is the part worth budgeting time for, because it changes how you work rather than where you click.

New in Kiro	What it does	Where to start
Specs	A written plan before code: requirements.md, design.md, tasks.md	Specs
Steering	Persistent project knowledge the agent reads every session	First steering file
Hooks	Run a prompt or command on save, on spec task completion, and more	Run tests on save
Custom agents	Scoped personas with restricted tools	Create a custom agent
Skills	Portable SKILL.md instruction packs on the open Agent Skills standard	Write a skill
Powers	POWER.md plus MCP config, loaded on demand for one technology	Add a power
Command allow/deny list	A terminal command allow and deny list, so the agent cannot run what you have not permitted	permissions.yaml

Two more that arrived after the succession and are worth knowing about: cloud sessions, which run the agent in a managed AWS sandbox any surface can attach to, and Kiro Crew, an open-source persistent agent that runs on your own hardware.

If you only adopt one new thing in the first week, make it steering. It is a Markdown file, it takes ten minutes, and it is the fastest way to stop repeating your conventions in every prompt.

Per-IDE steps

VS Code

1. Install the Kiro IDE from kiro.dev and launch it.
2. Accept the profile import prompt on first run. It brings across your extensions, settings, and keybindings.
3. Sign in with GitHub, Google, AWS Builder ID, or IAM Identity Center. Pick the same identity your organisation already uses.
4. Open a real project and check that your familiar extensions loaded.
5. Write one steering file before you write any prompts.

The Kiro IDE is built on Code OSS, the same open-source base VS Code uses, so the layout will feel familiar immediately. Since IDE v1.0.395 third-party extensions work alongside Kiro.

JetBrains IDEs

There is no Kiro plugin. You connect Kiro CLI to JetBrains AI Assistant instead, through the open Agent Client Protocol.

1. Install Kiro CLI and authenticate.
2. Find the full path with which kiro-cli.
3. Add Kiro as a custom agent in JetBrains AI Assistant via ACP. The JetBrains configuration lives at ~/.jetbrains/acp.json, and it must use the full path, not the bare command name.
4. kiro-cli acp is the command JetBrains runs; add --agent my-agent if you want a specific custom agent. It speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdin and stdout.

Sessions land in ~/.kiro/sessions/cli/. The same mechanism works for Zed, configured in ~/.config/zed/settings.json under “Kiro Agent”. Full walkthrough: Kiro CLI in JetBrains and Zed over ACP.

Visual Studio and Eclipse

There is no plugin for either. The documented answer is to use the Kiro IDE for agent work, or run Kiro CLI in a terminal alongside the IDE you already use.

The CLI path is less of a downgrade than it sounds. It has the full primitive set: specs, steering, hooks, custom agents, skills, and MCP. See the CLI Guide.

CLI migration

The CLI is the easiest part, because most of it happened for you.

• The q entry points are preserved, so existing commands and scripts keep working.
• Configuration moved from ~/.aws/amazonq to ~/.kiro, and legacy in-project .amazonq folders are still read.
• Global configuration now lives in ~/.kiro/: ~/.kiro/settings/mcp.json for MCP servers, ~/.kiro/agents/ for custom agents, ~/.kiro/steering/ for global steering, ~/.kiro/skills/, ~/.kiro/hooks/, and ~/.kiro/powers/. Project configuration sits in .kiro/ in the repository. Set KIRO_HOME if you want separate profiles.

Beyond that, treat the CLI as a new tool worth ten minutes of reading. /guide starts the built-in onboarding agent, and introspect is a built-in subagent that explains Kiro features and your own configuration back to you.

Migration checklist

Frequently asked questions

Is Amazon Q Developer discontinued?

It is on a published wind-down. New signups closed on 15 May 2026, and the IDE plugins and paid subscriptions reach end of support on 30 April 2027. Kiro CLI has been the official successor to Q Developer CLI since 17 November 2025.

Will my q commands break?

No. The q entry points are preserved.

Where did my configuration go?

From ~/.aws/amazonq to ~/.kiro, automatically. Legacy in-project .amazonq folders are still read.

Is there a Kiro plugin for Visual Studio or Eclipse?

No. Use the Kiro IDE, or run Kiro CLI in a terminal alongside your current IDE.

Do I have to use specs now?

No. Specs are the default path for work that deserves a plan, but conversational sessions still exist and are the right choice for exploration and quick prototypes. The Use Cases chapter has the split.

What does it cost compared with Q Developer?

Kiro sells credits: Free $0 with 50 a month, Pro $20 with 1,000, Pro+ $40 with 2,000, Pro Max $100 with 5,000, and Power $200 with 10,000, plus add-on credits at $0.04 each on paid tiers, checked 4 September 2026. This site does not hold verified Q Developer pricing to compare against, so check your current AWS bill rather than assuming parity.