AI-262: Using Amazon Kiro for Agentic Coding and SDD

Harness Amazon Kiro's Vibe and Spec modes, MCP tooling, and Specification-Driven Development to deliver sustainable software systems.

Course Length

2 days or 4 half days

Course Overview

AI-powered coding tools such as Amazon Kiro are rapidly transforming how software is designed, implemented, and maintained. This course teaches participants how to move beyond simple prompt-based coding and adopt a systematic, agentic approach that improves productivity without sacrificing quality, governance, or maintainability.

Participants will learn how to use Kiro's Vibe and Spec modes to implement “vibe coding” and Specification-Driven Development (SDD) respectively. SDD's structured methodology spans the whole software development life cycle (SDLC) and ensures that software development remains aligned with business intent, technical constraints, and long-term sustainability. The course combines conceptual foundations with extensive hands-on exercises, enabling participants to immediately apply these techniques to real-world projects.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

  • • Understand the differences between Kiro's Vibe and Spec mode
  • • Understand the concepts of MCP servers and tools, and configure and use them in Kiro
  • • Create new applications and modify existing ones consisting of multiple files
  • • Use Kiro to create and run unit and integration tests
  • • Generate documentation for applications based on source code and user prompts
  • • Use Kiro for source control tasks
  • • Understand the limitations of “vibe-coding” and the need for a more structured methodology which spans the whole software development life cycle (SDLC)
  • • Understand the main principles, advantages and disadvantages of Specification-Driven Development (SDD)
  • • Explain the meaning and importance of SDD steps
  • • Use SDD in greenfield projects
  • • Use SDD in brownfield projects

Main Topics

Amazon Kiro with “Vibe Coding”

  • Kiro Chat modes: Vibe and Spec
  • Configuring and using MCP tools and toolsets
  • Using Kiro to create and modify multi-file applications
  • Using Kiro to create and run unit and integration tests
  • Using Kiro for documentation
  • Using Kiro for source control
  • Configuring and using asynchronous agents

Specification-Driven Development (SDD)

  • Limitations of “vibe coding” and the need for a more structured methodology which spans the whole software development life cycle (SDLC)
  • What is Specification-Driven Development (SDD)?
  • SDD workflow in Kiro:
  • • Steering (a.k.a. constitution) phase• Requirement phase• Design phase• Implementation Planning phase• Execution phase
  • Applying SDD in greenfield projects
  • Applying SDD in brownfield projects

Structure

Roughly 50% lecture, 50% hands on lab exercises. The lab exercises are executables with Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, C# or C/C++.

Target Audience

Software developers and testers as well as their technical managers who want to understand and use Kiro in “vibe coding” and spec-driven software development.

Prerequisites

  • • Experience with VS Code or similar IDEs
  • • Experience using ChatGPT or similar chat-based AI tools
  • • Basic knowledge of the programming language used during the lab exercises

Part of the ComponentSoft AI Portfolio

This training is part of the AI portfolio of Component Soft which explores essential AI topics, such as:

  • • AI-101: Intro to GenAI with Large Language Model (LLMs) and LLM-based apps.
  • • AI-141: Using GitHub Copilot as coding assistant
  • • AI-161: Using Amazon Q as coding assistant
  • • AI-242: Using GitHub Copilot and spec-kit for agentic coding and spec-driven development (SDD)
  • • AI-262: Using Amazon Kiro for agentic coding and spec-driven development (SDD)
  • • AI-434: GenAI Application Development with LLMs
  • • AI-452: Agentic AI Application Development with LLMs