After installing Kiro, here's what the first launch looks like and how to get oriented in the IDE.
When you open Kiro for the first time, you'll walk through a short onboarding flow:
Sign in - Choose a provider (Google, GitHub, AWS Builder ID, or your organization's identity provider). Learn more about authentication.
Import settings (optional) - If you're coming from VS Code, you can import your settings and extensions. Otherwise, skip this step.
Choose a theme - Select Kiro Dark or Kiro Light. You can change this anytime in settings.
Shell integration - Allow Kiro to set up shell integration so the agent can execute commands on your behalf.
The video walks through the Kiro IDE onboarding flow on a dark background. It opens on a sign-in screen displaying the purple KIRO logo, the tagline "An agentic IDE that helps you do your best work," and four authentication buttons: Sign in with Google, GitHub, AWS Builder ID, and organization identity. It then advances to an Import configuration screen offering Import from VS Code and Skip options, followed by a Choose your theme screen with selectable Kiro Dark and Kiro Light preview cards and a Continue button. The sequence ends on a loading screen with the text "Loading - Setting up your IDE…"
From the welcome page:
kiro . from your project directory in the terminalKiro Panel - Click the Kiro Ghost icon in the activity bar (left sidebar). This panel gives you access to Specs, Agent Hooks, Steering, and MCP Servers.
Chat pane - Open by default. This is where you interact with the AI agent conversationally.
Start working - Type a message in the chat pane to begin. See Your first project for a guided walkthrough.
Every session starts with the default agent - a general-purpose coding assistant. You can begin working immediately with free-flow conversation, or select a structured workflow upfront. You can also switch between agents at any point during a session.
When you open a new session, the "Let's build" screen gives you two paths:
| Workflow | What it does |
|---|---|
| Spec | Structured feature development (requirements → design → tasks with approval gates) |
| Plan | Read-only planning mode - explores your codebase and produces an implementation plan without making changes |
| Bug Fix | Structured bug investigation (root cause → fix design → implementation) |
| Quick Spec | Fast spec workflow - auto-generates requirements, design, and tasks without approval gates |
Selecting a workflow switches the session to that agent. The agent handles the structured process from there. As a rule of thumb, reach for specs when you're building complex features or fixing bugs where regressions are costly, and stay in free-flow chat for quick exploratory work.
You don't need to decide at session start - switch agents at any time:
This means you can start with a quick question in free-flow mode, then switch to the Plan agent when the task gets complex, then switch back to Default for implementation. Kiro also ships with several pre-configured agents - see Built-in agents for the full list and invocation details.
Kiro supports most popular programming languages. These guides help set up your environment and cover best practices:
Setup & First Run