Enhancement Request: AI Agent support for VS Code forks (Kiro)

[RBracke]

I recently started using the AI Agent Support functionality of sn-scriptsync together with Amazon Q Developer.
Since Amazon Q Developer only uses older AI models, I wanted to try Kiro, which gives me access to better models.
I installed sn-scriptsync on Kiro successfully and all basic functionality works fine.
Scripts sync without issues over the existing WebSocket connection to the browser/SN Utils helper tab.
However, the AI Agent Support doesn't seem to work at all.

What I've found after debugging:

• The _settings.json is configured correctly and the instance connection is established (scripts sync fine).
• The agent handler doesn't pick up file creates. No errors are logged and no error file is generated, it just fails silently.
  My best guess is that this is a Kiro-specific compatibility issue. The FileSystemWatcher used by the agent handler may behave slightly differently on Kiro compared to VS Code.

In short: script sync works, agent file creates are ignored, no errors thrown.

Environment:
Kiro version: 0.11.34
sn-scriptsync version: 4.2.2

Is this something that could be looked into? Happy to help test if needed.

[arnoudkooi]

For me a quick test worked, have you copied the agentinstructions.md to ~/.kiro/steering/
Alternatif you may instruct it to read the agentinstructions.md, then it should be aware.

The default setting for the filesystemwatcher is now 0, that means it will only detect changes, not auto save them.
That is recommended to be handled by the agent.

Hope that helps!
If not, let's check in to troubleshoot.

[RBracke]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I followed your recommendations but it still didn't do the trick.

The AI's response is the following:

After reinstalling (uninstall → delete extension folder → reinstall → reload window), the Agent API code is now present in the extension files (check_connection, agent request handling, etc. are all in extension.js). However, the extension's activate() function never seems to run in Kiro:

• "sn-scriptsync" does not appear in the Output panel dropdown

• No context menu items show when right-clicking .script.js files (even though "Show Context Menu" is enabled in settings)

• No logs in Extension Host output

• No Agent API responses are generated

Script sync does work, but that seems to go through the SN Utils browser helper tab's WebSocket directly, not through the extension's code.

So the status bar icon loads and WebSocket sync works, but the extension host code (Agent API handler, context menus, output channel) never initializes.

Do you have any other suggestions? I'm also definitely available to connect if you are up for it.

[RBracke]

I had an alignment with Arnoud, where we noticed there were a lot of dependencies missing in my Ubuntu installation running Kiro.
This included installing a new version of Node.js and installing libstdc++6.
After the initial errors disappeared, the LLM running in Kiro also had to make the following changes to the pulled git project.
This is the summary of what it did:

The Problem

Kiro (and likely other VS Code-based AI editors) create files using the VS Code text document API — meaning new files trigger onDidSaveTextDocument, not the file system watcher's onDidCreate event.

The sn-scriptsync Agent API relies on a file watcher (onDidCreate) to detect new request files in {instance}/agent/requests/. But when Kiro creates those files, the event goes through onDidSaveTextDocument → saveFieldsToServiceNow() instead. That function has a catch-all that ignores anything in the agent/ folder (correctly — agent files shouldn't sync to ServiceNow), but it never hands the request off to handleAgentRequest().

The audit log showed every request hitting this dead end:
sync_candidate_received → sync_candidate_ignored (reason: agent_folder)

The Fix

In extension.ts, in the saveFieldsToServiceNow function, the agent folder check was changed from a blanket ignore to also routing agent request files to the handler:
Before:

// Skip Agent API folders (communication files, not for sync)
 if (filePath.includes(`${path.sep}agent${path.sep}`)) {
     auditLog('sync_candidate_ignored', { reason: 'agent_folder', filePath }, runId);
     return true;
 }

After:

// Skip Agent API folders (communication files, not for sync)
// But still handle agent request files (Kiro/VS Code creates files via onDidSaveTextDocument, not onDidCreate)
if (filePath.includes(`${path.sep}agent${path.sep}`)) {
    if (fileName.endsWith('.json') && filePath.includes(`${path.sep}agent${path.sep}requests${path.sep}`)) {
        auditLog('agent_request_from_save', { filePath }, runId);
        handleAgentRequest(filePath);
    } else {
        auditLog('sync_candidate_ignored', { reason: 'agent_folder', filePath }, runId);
    }
    return true;
}

The same change was applied to the compiled extension.js (which happened automatically via a build watcher in your case). After reloading the window, the Agent API worked immediately.

Conclusion

The core issue is a Kiro-specific behavior — Kiro's file creation tools use the VS Code text document API (onDidSaveTextDocument) rather than writing directly to disk (which would trigger the file system watcher's onDidCreate). The extension was built expecting the latter.

This is something Arnoud (the sn-scriptsync creator) would need to merge into the main codebase for it to work out of the box. Since you worked on this together, it'd be worth sharing the fix with him — it's a small, safe change that makes the Agent API compatible with Kiro and potentially other AI editors that behave the same way.

@arnoudkooi, I'm not sure if you agree with the explanation of the LLM. If you want to sit together again about this feel free to reach out. Again thanks a lot for the support.

[arnoudkooi]

The suggested fix is applied, could you test if it works in 4.2.3?