Amazon Q Developer CLI agent: A Director’s Technical Perspective

I have something special for my followers who have been keeping up with all of my Amazon Q Developer content! I recently spoke with Srini Iragavarapu, Director of Generative AI Applications and Developer Experiences at AWS, and one of the key leaders behind the new Amazon Q Developer CLI agent, while I was visiting Seattle. This conversation was just meant to become a series of short videos for social media, but after leaving the studio I realised this would be a great blog post too, so here you go!

In the launch content I regularly make, you get to hear what something is, and how to get started. In this conversation, you get to hear the real-world impact from the perspective of someone who really helped shape (and continues to shape!) this technology. This was a treat for both of us, and ur conversation covers everything from the technical underpinnings to wow moment stories from early users.

Let me know in the comments below this post if you want to hear more from technical leaders like Srini!

Brooke: The new Amazon Q Developer CLI agent promises to transform terminal workflows. What can it do that previous versions couldn't?

Srini: The previous version actually could talk to you. Now the latest version with the CLI is more agentic. What it does mean is not only does it talk with you, it actually talks with the tools that you provide to it through the terminal and get things done for me.

Brooke: Many developers prefer working in the terminal over IDEs. What specific pain points does the new Amazon Q Developer CLI agent solve for them?

Srini: The biggest one is where the developer can actually stay within the terminal, and you install a lot of tools, from NPM Package Manager all the way to Git. It actually has access to all of these tools, and it gives you the best of the both worlds. So you stay in the terminal without having to switch context while you use the tools.

Brooke: Vibe coding is gaining popularity for rapid development. How does the new Amazon Q Developer CLI agent help people get into this flow state?

Srini: Developers love to stay in the tools that they like, whether it's in the IDE or in the terminal. With the CLI now being agentic, if you have been doing a bunch of tasks in the CLI, you get to stay there and actually finish those tasks there and then finish your other tasks in the IDE separately as well. You don't really have to switch across as much, and that helps get the vibe going all the time.

Brooke: Multi-turn conversation is a key feature of the new Q developer CLI agent. How does this change what's possible to build in a single terminal session?

Srini: This CLI agent is based on the Claude 3.7 Sonnet model right now, and that has multi-step reasoning capabilities. Not only are you talking to it once, because it's a conversational piece, it goes back and forth and you can talk to it within the same terminal, giving it access to all the tools as well.

Brooke: Let's talk practical time savings for developers. So what's an example where the CLI agent with Amazon Q Developer dramatically accelerated development time compared to traditional methods?

Srini: In fact, as I was walking here, I was chatting with one of the developers on the team, and one of the things he said is, Srini, while chatting with you, not only did I finish coding, I added all the tests that I was supposed to add, and CLI did it for him.

Brooke: For developers wanting to quickly prototype with the new Q Developer CLI agent, what are your top practical tips for them maximizing their results?

Srini: If you're already using Terminal, then install the Amazon Q Developer CLI agent and continue performing your operations. What it actually does, because the CLI is agentic, it'll tell you what else could you do and start coming up with ideas. This is where creativity comes into play. And if you are new to Terminal and never used it, this is one that you should experiment with.

Brooke: Developers are sharing some really impressive projects built with the new Amazon Q Developer CLI agent. What's the most creative implementation you've seen?

Srini: I've seen both extremes. There are folks who have never built apps and are actually now building gaming applications and learning the fundamentals of gaming applications. And the other extreme, professional developers and people who have been operating in the terminal and managing AWS resources and compute, they've been using Amazon Q Developer CLI agent to get things done faster.

Brooke: What's your favorite wow moment you've seen with the Amazon Q Developer CLI agent?

Srini: There are three of them. One, somebody who's never coded recently has built a gaming app. Number two, a developer finished the task where they thought it would take them three days in less than an hour. Not only did they do that, they wrote tests and were able to get it running as well. And the third one is where they were able to actually debug operation issues within the CLI, the AWS CLI, to find out what was going on on a production system.

I hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes chat with Srini! Every time I make launch content for AWS, I get to work closely with the product teams behind the scenes, and I love this because I get to see all the hard work, thought, and effort that goes into making the products I later see developers using in the community.

I always think "I wish I could share this" when I have these conversations, so here's the first one, and I hope to do more of these throughout the year. The stories Srini shared about developers completing multi-day tasks in an hour and beginners creating gaming applications show just what's possible when these tools get in the hands of creative developers.

If you're curious about the Amazon Q Developer CLI agent after reading this interview, give it a try and see what it can do for you. The team are excited to see what you create—share your projects using #QDevCLIagent!