Kiro is AWS's agentic IDE with spec-driven development built in. It's a real tool doing something useful. But it's also a new IDE, an AWS ecosystem play, and a commitment to one coding agent. If you want spec-driven development without switching your editor or locking into AWS, there's a different path.
Tekk.coach is a standalone spec driven development platform — agent-agnostic, IDE-agnostic, codebase-aware. Connect your repo, plan the feature, execute with whatever coding agent you already use.
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Key Benefits
No IDE switching Keep Cursor, VS Code, or whatever editor you use. Tekk is a planning layer you use before dispatching to your existing tools — not a replacement for them.
Works with any coding agent Cursor, Codex, Claude Code, Gemini — Tekk generates specs any of them can execute. You're not locked into one agent or one cloud provider. When you need to run agents in parallel, ai agent orchestration handles the coordination layer across all of them.
Codebase-first spec generation Before asking a question, Tekk's agent reads your repository. Specs reference your actual files, patterns, and dependencies. Output is grounded in your code, not your description of your code.
Project-level visibility Tekk's kanban board shows every planned feature, in-progress task, and completed work — each linked to its planning session. Kiro's spec workflow operates at the individual feature level, with no cross-feature view.
Explicit scope protection Every plan has a "Not Building" section. Scope creep is a spec problem, not a coding problem. Tekk solves it at the planning stage.
How It Works
Step 1: Connect your repository Link GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. Tekk indexes the codebase — languages, frameworks, services, dependencies. Supports any cloud provider; no AWS requirement.
Step 2: Create a task Describe what you want to build. A paragraph is enough — the agent's job is to extract the full requirements from the conversation, not to receive them pre-formed.
Step 3: Agent reads your code Before engaging, the agent searches your repository — semantic search, file search, regex, directory browsing. It identifies relevant files, existing patterns, and architectural constraints. No generic questions from here.
Step 4: Clarifying questions and architectural options The agent asks 3–6 questions based on what it found. Then it presents 2–3 architecturally distinct approaches with honest tradeoffs. You choose the direction.
Step 5: Spec generated The complete plan streams into the BlockNote editor: TL;DR, Building / Not Building, subtasks with acceptance criteria and file references, assumptions with risk levels, validation scenarios. Review and edit the document, then execute with your preferred coding agent.
Who This Is For
Developers already using Cursor or Claude Code who want structured specs without switching their editor. Kiro requires adopting a new IDE. Tekk works alongside what you already have. The planning session runs in Tekk; the implementation runs in whatever agent you prefer.
Teams not on AWS who want spec-driven development without AWS dependency. Kiro's deepest integrations are AWS-native. Its roadmap follows AWS infrastructure. If your stack is elsewhere, that lock-in is a real cost.
Small teams building multiple features in parallel who need project-level visibility. Tekk's kanban board shows every task's status alongside its planning session. You see what's planned, in progress, and done in one view — not just the spec for the feature you're currently working on.
Builders who want spec-driven development without process overhead — no new IDE, no AWS account, no restructuring your workflow. Connect the repo, describe the feature, get the spec, execute. That's the path.
Kiro is the right call if: you're AWS-native, you want spec-driven development inside your IDE rather than as a separate planning layer, and you're willing to switch editors and adopt the full Kiro ecosystem. Those are real tradeoffs worth making for the right team. Teams that also need product-level documents upstream can use the ai prd generator before moving into the spec workflow.
What Is Spec-Driven Development with Kiro?
Kiro implements spec-driven development by generating three structured files before any code is written: requirements.md (user stories and acceptance criteria in EARS notation), design.md (technical architecture and sequence diagrams), and tasks.md (sequenced implementation plan). The developer reviews and iterates on these files before Kiro begins implementation.
EARS (Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax) is a structured format for writing unambiguous requirements, originally developed for safety-critical systems. Kiro applies it to AI coding to ensure generated requirements are testable and traceable.
Kiro launched mid-2025 as part of AWS's push into agentic development tooling. It expanded to AWS GovCloud in February 2026 and added SageMaker integration in March 2026. It's powered by Claude (Anthropic's models) and is priced at $20/month, same as Cursor.
The broader spec-driven development landscape in 2026 includes IDEs (Kiro, Tessl), standalone platforms (Tekk.coach, Augment Code/Intent), open-source frameworks (GitHub Spec Kit with 70k+ stars, OpenSpec, BMAD-METHOD), and coding agents with informal spec support (Cursor's .cursorrules). The category has grown from a handful of tools to over 20 viable platforms since mid-2025.