Use Kiro CLI in JetBrains or Zed

The Agent Client Protocol lets another editor drive Kiro’s agent. Run kiro-cli acp and JetBrains or Zed talks to the same agent you get in the terminal, inside the editor you already use.

When to use this

Use this when your team is on JetBrains or Zed and switching to the Kiro IDE is not on the table. It is also the documented route for JetBrains users migrating from Amazon Q Developer, because there is no JetBrains plugin for Kiro.

Steps

1. Install Kiro CLI and complete the browser sign-in, exactly as you would for terminal use.

2. Find the full path to the binary:

   which kiro-cli

   Use that path in the configuration below. An editor launched from a desktop icon may not inherit your shell PATH, and a bare kiro-cli then fails with a confusing “not found”.

3. Confirm the ACP mode starts. kiro-cli acp speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdin and stdout, so run it once and expect it to wait silently rather than print a prompt. That silence is correct.

4. Add a specific agent if you want one. kiro-cli acp --agent reviewer starts the ACP process as that custom agent, which is a clean way to give an editor integration a restricted tool set. See Create a custom agent.

5. Register it in JetBrains. The configuration file is ~/.jetbrains/acp.json, and Kiro appears as a custom agent in JetBrains AI Assistant once it is registered.

6. Register it in Zed. Add a “Kiro Agent” entry to ~/.config/zed/settings.json pointing at the full binary path with the acp argument.

7. Restart the editor and pick Kiro in its agent selector.

Check it worked

Start a conversation from inside the editor and ask the agent to read a file in the open project. Then open a terminal and look in ~/.kiro/sessions/cli/. Sessions started through ACP are stored there like any other CLI session, which means you can resume one from the terminal later.

Common problems

• The editor cannot find kiro-cli. Use the absolute path from which kiro-cli. This is the most common failure by a wide margin.
• The agent starts and immediately exits. Authentication is missing. Run kiro-cli in a terminal first and complete the browser sign-in.
• Nothing happens when you send a message. The editor is not speaking ACP to the process. Check the argument is exactly acp and that no shell wrapper is swallowing stdin.
• The wrong persona answers. Add --agent <name> so the ACP process starts as the agent you meant.
• You expected a plugin. There is no Kiro plugin for JetBrains, Visual Studio, or Eclipse. ACP is the JetBrains route; for Visual Studio and Eclipse, run the Kiro IDE or the CLI alongside your editor.

Related

• Kiro CLI Guide covers the commands you will use once connected.
• The CLI explains what the terminal surface can do.
• Migrate from Q Developer covers the JetBrains migration path.