Setup Kiro CLI Action

A GitHub Action that installs and caches Kiro CLI for CI/CD workflows, with headless IAM authentication via SIGV4. OpenSSF silver certified: fewer than 1% of open source projects reach this level.

Unofficial community action. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Amazon Web Services. "Kiro" and "Amazon Web Services" are trademarks of AWS.

Important

Prompt Injection Risk: When AI analyzes user-controlled input (git diffs, code comments, commit messages), malicious actors can embed instructions to manipulate output. This applies to ANY AI tool.

For production use, see Security Patterns below for three defensive tiers.

Usage

# Recommended: get latest v1.x updates automatically
- uses: clouatre-labs/setup-kiro-action@v1

# Pin to exact SHA (recommended for supply chain integrity)
- uses: clouatre-labs/setup-kiro-action@91393ee22956aee30d31f53abc8d37ac69e02102  # v1.0.1

Current default Kiro CLI version: See action.yml

Quick Start: Tier 1 (Maximum Security)

name: AI Analysis - Maximum Security
on: [pull_request]

permissions:
  id-token: write
  contents: read

jobs:
  analyze:
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@de0fac2e4500dabe0009e67214ff5f5447ce83dd  # v6

      - name: Lint Code
        run: pipx run ruff check --output-format=json . > lint.json || true

      - name: Configure AWS Credentials via OIDC
        uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@8df5847569e6427dd6c4fb1cf565c83acfa8afa7  # v6.0.0
        with:
          role-to-assume: ${{ secrets.AWS_ROLE_ARN }}
          aws-region: us-east-1

      - name: Setup Kiro CLI
        uses: clouatre-labs/setup-kiro-action@91393ee22956aee30d31f53abc8d37ac69e02102  # v1.0.1
        with:
          enable-sigv4: true
          aws-region: us-east-1

      - name: AI Analysis
        run: |
          echo "Summarize these linting issues and suggest fixes:" > prompt.txt
          cat lint.json >> prompt.txt
          kiro-cli-chat chat --no-interactive "$(cat prompt.txt)" > analysis.md

      - name: Upload Analysis
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@bbbca2ddaa5d8feaa63e36b76fdaad77386f024f  # v7
        with:
          name: ai-analysis
          path: analysis.md

Features

• Automatic caching - Caches Kiro CLI binaries for faster subsequent runs
• SIGV4 authentication - IAM-based headless authentication for CI/CD
• Lightweight - No external dependencies

Inputs

Input	Description	Required	Default
version	Kiro CLI version to install	No	See action.yml
aws-region	AWS region for Kiro CLI operations	No	us-east-1
enable-sigv4	Enable SIGV4 authentication mode	No	false
verify-checksum	Verify SHA256 checksum of downloaded binary	No	true

Outputs

Output	Description
kiro-version	Installed Kiro CLI version
kiro-path	Path to Kiro CLI binary directory

Security Patterns

This action supports three security tiers for AI-augmented CI/CD:

• Tier 1 (Maximum Security): AI analyzes only tool output (JSON), never raw code. See workflow
• Tier 2: AI sees file stats, requires manual approval. See workflow
• Tier 3: Full diff analysis, trusted teams only. See workflow

Safe Pattern: AI analyzes tool output (ruff, trivy, semgrep), not raw code.

Unsafe Pattern: AI analyzes git diffs directly, which is vulnerable to prompt injection.

Read the full explanation: AI-Augmented CI/CD blog post

See SECURITY.md for reporting vulnerabilities.

Supported Platforms

GitHub-hosted runners only - Designed for simple, fast, manageable CI/CD.

OS	Architecture	Runner Label
Ubuntu	x64	ubuntu-24.04, ubuntu-22.04
Ubuntu	ARM64	ubuntu-24.04-arm

macOS and Windows are not supported. For macOS, use the official install script: curl -fsSL https://cli.kiro.dev/install | bash

Both x64 and ARM64 architectures are tested in CI.

Authentication

OIDC (Recommended)

Uses GitHub's OIDC provider for secure, credential-free authentication. See the Tier 1 example for a complete workflow.

Required IAM permissions:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [{
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": ["q:StartConversation", "q:SendMessage", "q:GetConversation"],
    "Resource": "*"
  }]
}

IAM Credentials (Local / Simple Setups)

- uses: clouatre-labs/setup-kiro-action@91393ee22956aee30d31f53abc8d37ac69e02102  # v1.0.1
  # Do NOT set enable-sigv4 with long-lived credentials

- name: Use Kiro CLI
  env:
    AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
    AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
    AWS_REGION: us-east-1
  run: kiro-cli-chat chat --no-interactive "What is 2+2?"

Do not use enable-sigv4: true with long-lived IAM credentials (AKIA* keys).

How It Works

On first run, the action downloads the Kiro CLI binary from AWS CDN and caches it at ~/.local/bin/. Subsequent runs restore from cache. When enable-sigv4 is set, the action exports AMAZON_Q_SIGV4=1 for headless IAM authentication.

SIGV4 Discovery: The AMAZON_Q_SIGV4 environment variable was discovered through source code analysis of the amazon-q-developer-cli repository. It is an undocumented feature that enables headless IAM authentication for CI/CD environments.

Warning

SIGV4 not yet implemented in kiro-cli-chat: Amazon did not port SIGV4 authentication when migrating Q CLI to Kiro CLI. Setting enable-sigv4: true will emit a CI warning but has no functional effect. Track upstream progress at kirodotdev/Kiro#5938. For working SIGV4 headless authentication today, use clouatre-labs/setup-q-cli-action instead.

Troubleshooting

Binary not found: Ensure the action step runs before any kiro-cli-chat invocation.

SIGV4 not working: AMAZON_Q_SIGV4 is not yet implemented in kiro-cli-chat. This is a known upstream limitation tracked at kirodotdev/Kiro#5938. Use clouatre-labs/setup-q-cli-action for working SIGV4 support.

Cache not working: The cache key includes OS and architecture. Changing runners creates a new cache entry - this is expected.

Migration from Q CLI

Q CLI	Kiro CLI
clouatre-labs/setup-q-cli-action@v1	clouatre-labs/setup-kiro-action@v1
qchat chat --no-interactive "..."	kiro-cli-chat chat --no-interactive "..."
steps.q.outputs.q-version	steps.kiro.outputs.kiro-version
steps.q.outputs.q-path	steps.kiro.outputs.kiro-path

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please open an issue or PR.

License

Apache 2.0. See LICENSE.

Related

• AI-Augmented CI/CD - 3-tier security model for AI code review in CI/CD pipelines
• Kiro CLI Documentation - Official Kiro CLI documentation
• Amazon Q Developer CLI - Upstream repository (Apache 2.0)
• Setup Goose Action - Similar action for Goose AI agent
• Setup Q CLI Action - Previous action for Q CLI (deprecated)

Acknowledgments

Built by clouatre-labs for the developer community.

Trademark Notice: "Kiro" and "Amazon Web Services" are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon Web Services.