CLI changelog

This release adds adaptive thinking support so model reasoning carries across turns in a conversation, giving you more coherent answers as context builds. It also fixes a silent failure in subagent tool dispatch when MCP servers update their tool specs mid-execution.

Kiro CLI now preserves model reasoning across multi-turn conversations. Thought content from earlier turns stays available to the model on subsequent turns, so follow-up answers stay aligned with the reasoning that produced previous responses. You get more coherent multi-step workflows without re-explaining context.

This release focuses on keeping you in flow: shell output streams as it happens, Tool Search loads MCP tools on demand so your context window stays clear, and skills are now invokable as slash commands. This release also adds device flow authentication for remote environments, RHEL support, and several rendering and stability fixes.

Shell command output now streams to the terminal line by line as it runs, instead of buffering until the process completes. Long-running commands like builds, test suites, and deployments show progress immediately, so you can follow along and catch issues early. Learn more ->

Tool Search loads MCP tools on demand instead of sending every definition with each request, keeping your context window clear when you have many MCP servers configured. Enable it with kiro-cli settings toolSearch.enabled true. Learn more ->

Skills defined in .kiro/skills/ are now available as `/skill-name` slash commands. Type / and the skill name to invoke it directly, giving you quick access to reusable agent instructions without switching agents or copying instructions into your prompt. Learn more ->

Sign in with Google or GitHub from SSH sessions, containers, and cloud workspaces without port forwarding. The CLI displays a URL and one-time code you enter in any browser — same flow as Builder ID and IAM Identity Center. Learn more ->

Kiro CLI's terminal UI now runs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). If you're working in enterprise Linux environments, you get the same full-featured terminal UI experience available on other Linux distributions, macOS, and Windows. Learn more ->

Kiro CLI 2.0 expands platform support to Windows, introduces headless mode for CI/CD automation, graduates the terminal UI from experimental to the default experience, and adds new capabilities across subagents, hooks, and MCP configuration.

Kiro CLI now runs natively on Windows 11. Windows users can now build using the same agentic coding experience available on macOS and Linux — terminal UI, headless mode, custom agents, and MCP servers all included. Install from PowerShell and background auto-updates keep you current. Learn more ->

Run Kiro CLI non-interactively in CI/CD pipelines, automation scripts, and environments without a browser. Authenticate with an API key via the KIRO_API_KEY environment variable, pass a prompt with --no-interactive, and Kiro executes it end-to-end. Use --trust-all-tools or --trust-tools to grant tool permissions upfront. API key authentication is available for Pro, Pro+, and Power subscribers, and enterprise admins can control API key generation through governance settings. Learn more ->

The terminal UI is now the default chat interface. It gives you syntax-highlighted markdown, interactive overlay panels, visual tool progress, and a full set of keyboard shortcuts. Use the crew monitor (Ctrl+G) to track subagent activity in real time, /theme to customize colors, /copy for clipboard access over SSH, /transcript to review conversation history in your pager, /guide to switch to the onboarding agent, and /spawn to run parallel agent sessions. Subagents now support task dependencies — for example, analyze a codebase first, then refactor modules, then run tests, with each step waiting for the previous one to finish while independent steps run in parallel. Switch back to the classic interface anytime with --classic or kiro-cli settings chat.ui "classic". Learn more ->

This release brings an experimental refreshed terminal UI behind the --tui flag. The new experience features a live status bar, rich markdown rendering with syntax-highlighted code blocks, interactive panels for managing context and sessions, and contextual overlays for tools and help. You also get /chat new for starting fresh conversations without restarting the CLI, and --list-models for quickly checking which models are available.

Get a richer chat experience with the new TUI. Agent responses render with full markdown, syntax-highlighted code blocks, tables, and nested formatting. Tool calls show descriptive titles and progress indicators as they run. Interactive panels let you browse context, switch sessions, and manage tools without leaving the terminal. The classic interface remains the default, so you can switch back at any time. Try it with kiro-cli --tui or set it permanently with kiro-cli settings chat.ui "tui". Learn more ->

This release streamlines how you create and manage agents. Describe what you need and Kiro CLI generates your agent config, use the new session settings tool to tweak preferences mid-conversation without editing config files, and control exactly which shell commands you trust with granular scoped permissions.

The /agent create command now defaults to AI-assisted mode, merging the previous /agent generate workflow into a single command. Describe what you want your agent to do and Kiro generates the agent configuration for you. Pass --manual to use the previous editor-based creation flow. You can also specify creation arguments directly at invocation time to bypass the interactive menu entirely. Learn more ->

When Kiro asks to use a tool, you now get an interactive picker to choose how broadly to trust it. For shell commands, select from tiered scopes — trust the exact command, the command with any arguments, or the base command with wildcards. For read and write tools, scope trust to specific file paths, the containing directory, or the entire tool. The picker adapts to each action, skipping tiers that aren't meaningful, and handles chained shell commands automatically. Learn more ->

You can now ask the agent to adjust settings temporarily within your current session — change model preferences, toggle features, or tweak behavior without modifying your config files. All session overrides apply in-memory and reset automatically when the session ends. Learn more ->

This release adds inline file references with @path syntax, dynamic model selection with tab completion, and estimated token usage visibility for tools. It also brings automatic skill loading, improved agent editing, and enhanced context management.

Include file contents or directory trees directly in your messages using @path syntax. Content is expanded inline before sending, avoiding tool calls and saving tokens. Type @src/main.rs to inject file contents, or @src/ to show a directory tree. Tab completion and syntax highlighting help you reference files quickly. Learn more ->

The /model command now supports direct selection with tab completion and fuzzy matching. Type /model clau<Tab> to see matching models, or /model claude-opus-4.6 to switch immediately. Ghost text hints appear as you type. Learn more ->

The /tools command now displays estimated token counts for each tool and totals per origin, helping you understand context window usage from MCP servers and native tools. Learn more ->

This release adds support for authenticating Kiro CLI with Okta or Microsoft Entra ID credentials.

Enterprise teams can now connect Okta or Microsoft Entra ID alongside AWS IAM Identity Center for centralized access management. Developers authenticate the CLI with their existing corporate credentials through a browser-based OAuth flow. User and group synchronization happens automatically through SCIM provisioning. Configure your IdP once and it works across both Kiro IDE and CLI. Learn more ->

This release adds Agent Client Protocol (ACP) support for integrating Kiro into ACP-compatible IDEs and clients, a Help Agent for instant CLI guidance, and a range of tool and configuration improvements.

ACP-compatible editors like JetBrains IDEs and Zed can now use Kiro as a custom agent. Run kiro-cli acp to start Kiro as an ACP-compliant agent that communicates over stdin/stdout using JSON-RPC. Kiro supports standard ACP methods plus extensions for slash commands, MCP tools, and session management. Learn more ->

Get instant answers about Kiro CLI without leaving your conversation. The built-in Help Agent uses documentation to answer questions about commands, tools, settings, and configuration — and can even create config files in .kiro/ for you. Use /help to switch to the Help Agent, or /help How do I configure MCP? to ask directly. Learn more ->

Administrators can now disable web_search and web_fetch tools organization-wide. Users see a notification in /tools when web access is disabled by their organization. Learn more ->

New availableAgents and trustedAgents settings give fine-grained control over which agents can be spawned as subagents. Both support glob patterns like test-*. Learn more ->

Structured exit codes for scripting and automation. --require-mcp-startup ensures MCP servers are up before your session starts. Learn more ->

This release brings custom diff tools, built-in code intelligence for 18 languages, skills for progressive context loading, remote authentication, granular web_fetch tool permissions, and conversation compaction to keep long sessions running smoothly.

Skills are a new resource type designed for large documentation sets. Only metadata (name and description) loads at startup — full content loads on demand when the agent needs it. Skill files require YAML frontmatter with descriptive metadata. Write specific descriptions so the agent reliably knows when to load the full content. Learn more ->

View code changes your way. Configure external diff tools like delta, difftastic, or VS Code instead of the built-in inline diff. Set your preference with `chat.diffTool` in your settings. Popular options include delta for syntax highlighting with side-by-side view, difftastic for structural diffs that understand code syntax, and GUI diff tools for visual comparison. Learn more ->

New pattern-search and pattern-rewrite tools let the agent find and transform code using syntax-tree patterns rather than text regex. No more false matches on string literals or comments.

Out-of-the-box code understanding for 18 languages — no LSP setup required. Agents can now search symbols, navigate definitions, and perform structural code searches immediately. The new /code overview command gives you a complete picture of any workspace in seconds. Use --silent for cleaner output when diving into unfamiliar packages. Built-in support includes Bash, C, C++, C#, Elixir, Go, Java, JavaScript, Kotlin, Lua, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Scala, Swift, TSX, and TypeScript. Learn more ->

Free up context space with the /compact command. When you're approaching context limits, compaction summarizes your conversation history while preserving key information. Compaction also triggers automatically when your context window overflows. Configure retention with compaction.excludeMessages (minimum message pairs to keep) and compaction.excludeContextWindowPercent (minimum % to retain). Compaction creates a new session — resume the original anytime via /chat resume. Learn more ->

Control which URLs agents can access through your agent configuration. Use regex patterns to auto-allow trusted domains or block specific sites. Blocked patterns take precedence over trusted ones. URLs not matching trusted patterns will prompt for approval. Learn more ->

Sign in with Google or GitHub when running Kiro CLI on remote machines. Whether you're connected via SSH, SSM, or containers, authentication now works with port forwarding. For Builder ID and IAM Identity Center, device code authentication works out of the box — just enter the URL and code in your local browser. Learn more ->

This release introduces subagents for delegating complex tasks with live progress tracking, a built-in Plan agent for breaking down complex tasks into structured implementation plans, new grep and glob tools for fast file searching, multi-session support with an interactive session picker, and MCP registry support for governance.

Delegate complex tasks to specialized agents with live progress tracking. Subagents run autonomously with their own context, enabling parallel task execution while keeping the main agent context focused. A default subagent is included for general-purpose tasks. You can also spawn subagents using your own agent configurations, allowing you to create specialized subagents tailored to specific workflows. Subagents have access to core tools including file read/write, shell commands, and MCP tools.

This feature introduces a new built-in tool: subagent. If you have an existing agent configuration that restricts available tools, add subagent to your allowed tools list.

The Plan agent is a specialized built-in agent that transforms ideas into structured implementation plans. Access it with Shift + Tab or the /plan command. Here's the workflow:

1. Requirements gathering - Structured questions with multiple choice options to refine your idea

2. Research & analysis - Explores your codebase using code intelligence, grep, and glob tools

3. Implementation plan - Creates detailed task breakdowns with clear objectives and demo descriptions

4. Handoff - Transfers the approved plan to the execution agent

The Planning agent operates in read-only mode—it can explore your codebase but cannot modify files, keeping focus on planning.

Two new built-in tools for fast file searching:

• grep - Fast content search using regex. Respects `.gitignore`. Use instead of `grep`, `rg`, or `ag` commands in bash.

• glob - Fast file discovery using glob patterns. Respects `.gitignore`. Use instead of `find` command in bash.

Both tools are trusted by default in the current working directory and can be configured with allowedPaths and deniedPaths in your agent configuration.

Work across multiple chat sessions with the new interactive session picker:

• kiro-cli chat --resume-picker - Open the session picker from command line

• kiro-cli chat --list-sessions - List all saved sessions

• /chat resume - Open session picker from within a chat

Sessions are automatically saved on every turn. The picker shows session name, last activity, and message preview.

MCP registry support adds governance capabilities for MCP tools. Organizations can manage and control which MCP tools are available, ensuring consistency and security across teams.