What changed
AWS has introduced Kiro, an AI integrated development environment (IDE) that pairs an AI agent with a codebase to run multi-step engineering tasks. Kiro is designed to turn PHP-to-Java migration from a one-time leap of faith into a measurable, repeatable process. The approach centers on a reusable engine with a shared methodology, a mechanical discovery scanner, and an eight-phase workflow. The original PHP application is treated as the specification, and the Java port is not declared correct until a parity harness verifies it.
What this means in practice
Kiro allows developers to migrate PHP applications to Java by walking through an eight-phase workflow with explicit approval gates. Developers review the discovery manifest, approve the rulebook, and sign off on each phase before the next begins. The engine treats the original PHP application as the specification and refuses to declare the Java port correct until a parity harness verifies it. Kiro also integrates with AWS Transform, an agentic AI service for large-scale migration and modernization, enabling the same methodology to be run at portfolio scale.
Limitations and availability
The migration process requires familiarity with PHP (Laravel/Eloquent or Symfony/Doctrine) and Java (Spring Boot, JPA). A Kiro workspace with access to Skills and Steering files is needed, along with PHP 8.0 or newer and Java 21 with Maven. The solution overview describes a shared methodology layer that can be used across multiple projects. The scanner, discover-models.php, runs three discovery strategies on source tokens and emits a single JSON manifest with a review-flag queue for human resolution. The parity-first pipeline includes phases where human judgment is front-loaded, followed by self-driving loops refereed by a parity harness.
