Chat

The Kiro CLI provides an interactive chat mode that lets you have natural conversations with AI directly in your terminal. The default experience uses a rich terminal UI with syntax-highlighted code, interactive panels, and visual tool progress.

To start a chat session:

kiro-cli

Or start a chat with a specific context:

kiro-cli --agent myagent

To run the session in a managed cloud sandbox instead of on your machine, add --cloud, optionally binding repositories with --repo — see Cloud sessions:

kiro-cli --cloud --repo owner/repository

Insert a newline in your prompt using any of these methods:

• Shift+Enter — works in iTerm2, Ghostty, Kitty, Warp, and Zed
• Ctrl+J — works in all terminals including tmux
• Alt+Enter — works in Terminal.app and Ghostty
• /editor — opens your default editor (defaults to vi) for composing longer prompts

If Shift+Enter doesn't work in your terminal, run /settings terminal to auto-configure it. See In-session settings for details.

You can also use the /reply command to open your editor with the most recent assistant message quoted for reply.

Run shell commands without going through the AI by prefixing with !:

!npm run build

Output streams in real time. TTY commands like vim, ssh, and top get full terminal access. Long output collapses to a head + tail view — press Ctrl+O to expand.

Use /context to view and manage what files are included in your session:

/context show              # View context breakdown with per-file token usage
/context add "src/**/*.ts" # Add files by glob pattern
/context remove src/app.js # Remove a context rule
/context clear             # Remove all rules

See Context Management for detailed documentation.

Kiro can remember your conversations based on the folder where you started them. When you start a session where you previously chatted with Kiro, you can tell Kiro to automatically load that conversation history, allowing you to seamlessly continue your discussion.

If it's your first time chatting in that directory, Kiro will start a new conversation (taking into consideration any designated context).

To explicitly resume a conversation in the current directory, use:

$ kiro-cli chat --resume

To resume a specific session by ID:

$ kiro-cli chat --resume-id <SESSION_ID>

To open an interactive session picker to choose from previous sessions:

$ kiro-cli chat --resume-picker

You can start a fresh conversation without restarting the CLI using the /chat new command. This saves your current session to the database and begins a new one in place.

# Start a fresh conversation
/chat new

# Start a fresh conversation with an initial prompt
/chat new how do I set up a React project

Use /chat resume to return to any previous session.

You can also manually save and load conversations using the following commands while in a chat session:

    /chat save [path] – Saves your current conversation to a JSON file.

        Add -f or --force to overwrite an existing file

        Examples:

        /chat save ./my-project-conversation -f

        /chat save /home/user/project/my-project-conversation.json

        You cannot use ~ to denote your home directory.

    /chat load [path] – Loads a conversation from a previously saved JSON file

        Example: /chat load ./my-project-conversation.json