Opus 4.5 performs really well in Kiro IDE

IDEs Kiro
1

I haven’t subscribed to Kiro yet—just tried it using the free 50 credits for the first time.

I ran into a CI issue where tests were failing because of snapshot mismatches. I tried updating the snapshots locally, but nothing changed and I was kinda stuck.

I explained the issue to Kiro + Opus 4.5, and it actually figured out the root cause. Turned out I was using a cached git repo (a boilerplate related to the snapshots). That boilerplate had been updated recently, but my local cache only refreshes once per week, so everything was out of sync.

What impressed me most:

Kiro didn’t just tell me what to do — it ran the commands for me.

It cleared the cache and updated the snapshots automatically. I didn’t have to run anything myself.

After that, CI passed. Done.

First impression of Kiro: pretty solid.

The free 50 credits is also a smart move—it’s enough to actually hit real problems and see the value.

Good job, Kiro. I might subscribe if Cursor starts to suck :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Snipaste_2025-12-17_15-24-36 (1)
Snipaste_2025-12-17_15-24-36 (1)868×664 82.4 KB

2

Just checked again — turns out Kiro also gives 500 bonus credits :tada:
Didn’t expect that at all. What a nice surprise

Snipaste_2025-12-17_16-28-25
Snipaste_2025-12-17_16-28-251672×976 104 KB

3

I think part of why Opus 4.5 feels so good in Kiro is because the IDE isn’t just sending the raw model request — it’s wrapping it in its own optimized prompts and context handling. A lot of these tools do a bunch of prompt engineering behind the scenes to bias the model toward certain behaviors or workflows, so the “same” model can act pretty differently depending on how the IDE structures the input. That’s why Opus can seem way better in one IDE than another — it’s not just the base model, it’s what the IDE feeds it

4

Also worth mentioning: the credit consumption is very transparent.

You can clearly see where credits are being used and how much each action costs (see screenshot :backhand_index_pointing_down:).

kiro-credits-view
kiro-credits-view1182×574 93.2 KB

This makes it much easier to judge whether the tool is actually worth paying for, instead of feeling like credits just disappear randomly

5

Generated by nano banana:

20251218133720_669_12
20251218133720_669_121024×559 136 KB

6

Sometimes it just hangs on a super simple command for no obvious reason.

If I send a quick message like “continue” to interrupt it, it reruns the same command and finishes way faster.

No idea why, but I’ve seen this happen more than once.

Snipaste_2025-12-18_18-18-01
Snipaste_2025-12-18_18-18-011182×822 72.9 KB

7

Kiro’s plan workflow and UI are actually pretty nice , especially for structuring tasks.

But the downside is that it sometimes gets stuck forever — even on simple planning steps, it just sits there in a pending state with no feedback.

Because of that, I choose to use the Codex extension instead to both generate the plan and execute it. It’s been more reliable for me so far, even if the UX isn’t as polished.

Hopefully Kiro can improve this part of the UX, because the idea and design are solid — it just needs better responsiveness and recovery when things hang.