What's New

AWS Transform now includes an interactive agentic AI assistant embedded directly in the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio, enabling .NET developers to modernize legacy applications through a conversational, step-by-step guided experience without leaving their IDE. The agent analyzes source code, generates a transformation plan, executes modernization tasks interactively, and automatically attempts to fix build errors encountered along the way. Beyond Visual Studio, the same AWS Transform agent capabilities are accessible via Kiro and other AI coding environments through AWS Transform MCP agents.

How It Works

• The agent begins by analyzing the .NET application's source code and producing a detailed assessment report, followed by a generated transformation plan that the developer can review or replace with a custom-uploaded plan.
• Modernization tasks are executed interactively and incrementally: the developer can review generated code diffs, edit them, and explicitly approve each step before the agent proceeds, providing fine-grained control over the transformation.
• Developers can pause the process at any step, inspect changes, and steer the agent using natural language instructions, enabling course corrections mid-transformation without restarting.
• When build errors are encountered during transformation, the agent automatically attempts to diagnose and fix them, reducing manual debugging overhead.
• Detailed worklogs are maintained throughout the process for full transparency, and upon completion the agent generates a downloadable HTML summary report with recommended next steps.
• Projects can be initiated in the AWS Transform web console and seamlessly continued inside Visual Studio, with full context and progress state preserved across both environments.
• AWS Transform MCP agents extend these capabilities to Kiro and other AI coding assistants, allowing developers to invoke transformation power from their preferred development environment.

Why It's Important

• .NET modernization projects have historically required developers to context-switch between their IDE and a web console, introducing friction and increasing the risk of workflow disruption; this integration eliminates that overhead entirely.
• The interactive, step-by-step approval model gives developers meaningful oversight over AI-generated changes, addressing a common concern about fully automated code transformation tools making opaque or undesirable modifications.
• Automatic build error remediation reduces one of the most time-consuming manual tasks in any modernization effort, accelerating the overall migration timeline.
• The checkpointing and pause/resume capability means large, complex modernization projects can be tackled incrementally without risk of losing progress, making it practical to modernize enterprise-scale .NET applications.
• Extending the capability to Kiro and MCP-compatible environments signals a platform strategy that meets developers where they already work, rather than forcing adoption of a single toolchain.
• The downloadable HTML summary report and recommended next steps provide artifacts that are useful for team communication, compliance documentation, and planning follow-on work.

How It's Different

• Unlike fully automated batch transformation tools, this agent operates interactively with per-step human review and approval, giving developers control rather than presenting a finished (and potentially incorrect) result.
• The bidirectional continuity between the AWS Transform web console and Visual Studio is unique: context and progress are preserved across both surfaces, so developers are not forced to choose one environment exclusively.
• Natural language steering mid-transformation is a differentiator from traditional migration tools that require configuration files or scripted parameters to change behavior.
• The MCP agent integration allows AWS Transform's capabilities to surface inside third-party AI coding assistants like Kiro, going beyond a single proprietary IDE plugin model.
• Automatic build error detection and self-healing during transformation is a step beyond tools that simply generate code and leave error resolution entirely to the developer.
• The custom plan upload feature allows teams with existing migration runbooks or architectural standards to inject their own guidance, rather than being constrained to the agent's default strategy.

When to Prefer It

• Use this when your team's .NET developers are deeply embedded in Visual Studio and organizational policy or personal preference makes switching to a web console disruptive to productivity.
• Prefer this approach for complex or large .NET codebases where a fully automated, no-review transformation carries too much risk and incremental, approved changes are required for quality assurance.
• Ideal when a modernization project spans multiple sessions or team members, since the checkpointing and cross-environment context preservation allow work to be paused and resumed without loss of state.
• Choose this when your organization has existing migration standards or architectural guidelines that need to be enforced, leveraging the custom plan upload to inject those constraints into the agent's execution.
• Well-suited for teams already adopting Kiro or other MCP-compatible AI coding assistants who want to consolidate tooling and avoid maintaining separate workflows for transformation versus day-to-day development.
• Appropriate when auditability and transparency are requirements, since the detailed worklogs and downloadable HTML summary report provide documentation artifacts for governance or compliance purposes.

Availability

• GA Status: Generally available as of May 14, 2026, via the latest AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio downloadable from the Visual Studio Marketplace.
• Supported Regions: US East (N. Virginia), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (London), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Sydney), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo).
• Pricing: No specific pricing details were disclosed in the announcement; costs are expected to follow existing AWS Transform pricing — consult the AWS Transform pricing page for current details.
• IDE Support: Natively integrated into Visual Studio; also accessible via Kiro and other MCP-compatible AI coding assistants through AWS Transform MCP agents.
• Limitations: Not yet available in all AWS Regions; developers in unsupported regions will need to use a supported region endpoint or wait for future regional expansion.