KiroForge to ORIK: Won $100K Building Useless Developer Tool

We built KiroForge to make devs faster. Then built ORIK to make them slower. The useless one won $100K at AWS re:Invent Hackathon. Here's how.

Harpreet Siddhu

AWS Community Builder | AWS Road to re:Invent Hackathon Champion

Published Dec 11, 2025

Last modified Apr 5, 2026

The Beginning: Building Something Actually Useful

Let me tell you a story about how my team won $100,000 by doing the exact opposite of what we planned. It started few weeks before the hackathon. My team had been working with AI-powered development tools Kiro IDE, and during our discussions, we noticed few gaps that enterprises would face when adopting Kiro at scale.

Understanding Kiro's Steering:

First, let me explain what steering is in Kiro IDE. Steering files (stored in .kiro/steering/) are markdown documents that guide Kiro's AI on how to generate code for your specific project. They define:

Workspace conventions and coding patterns
Preferred libraries and frameworks
Architectural decisions and design patterns
Project-specific best practices

Think of steering as "teaching" Kiro your team's way of building software. It's incredibly powerful for code generation.

The Gaps We Identified

We noticed things missing for enterprise adoption: (around the first week of Nov. 2025)

No centralized organizational steering - Every team was creating its own steering files from scratch, reinventing the wheel. No way to distribute company-wide standards across all Kiro users.
No real-time code quality validation - Kiro uses steering to generate code, but there was no validation to enforce quality standards after code is written. Issues discovered too late in code reviews.
No visibility into compliance - No way to track if teams were following organizational standards, measure code quality across projects, or understand developer productivity patterns.

So my team and I decided to build KiroForge - a VS Code extension with a comprehensive code quality platform for Kiro IDE, with three main components:

Centralized Organizational Steering Packs:
- Pre-built compliance steering organized by workflow that can be distributed across an entire organization. Think of it as "steering-as-a-service" - companies can now share their coding standards with all Kiro users. We created 10 comprehensive workflow-based steering.
KiroForge Quality Skills:
- Real-time code validation with 100+ quality hooks across 10 steering that catch issues as developers type. While Kiro's steering guides code generation, KiroForge validates code quality in real-time. Each hook includes: Coverage spans
Metrics & Governance Dashboard:
- Track compliance, violations, and developer productivity with Kiro Insights analytics. Finally, visibility into how teams are using Kiro and whether they're following organizational standards.
Kiro Developer Usage Analytics
- Track interactions and chat sessions
- Analyze tool usage patterns
- View activity patterns (hourly, daily, weekly)
- Export analytics data

Building KiroForge

KiroFore - VS Code Entension for Kiro IDE

My team worked on the idea together, and I took on building this tool using AI-DLC (AI-Driven Development Life Cycle) in Kiro IDE. The workflow was incredible:

Workspace detection and requirements analysis
User stories generation with personas
Application design with component architecture
Infrastructure design with AWS serverless
Code generation with comprehensive testing
Build and test automation

Kiro's AI generated thousands of lines of code following the structured AI-DLC workflow. I vibe-coded later to fix issues found during unit testing, integration testing, and end-to-end testing.

After weeks of development, I had a production-ready system with:

4 separate repositories with CI/CD pipelines
AWS serverless backend (Lambda, DynamoDB, S3, API Gateway)
VS Code extension v1.3.0 with 4 sidebar views and Kiro Insights
React dashboard with real-time compliance analytics
Product website at https://kiroforge.dev
86% test coverage across all components

And, we were ready for the road to re:Invent hackathon.

Then Came the Plot Twist

During the AWS Road to re:Invent Hackathon, excited to extend KiroForge with new features. Then we saw the challenge criteria:

Judging Criteria:

Magnificent Impracticality (40 pts): Wonderfully complex and utterly unnecessary. Breathtaking lack of common sense.
Pointless Problem Solving (35 pts): Elegant solution to a problem that never existed. Excessive effort applied to a non-issue.
Entertainment Excellence (25 pts): Ability to delight, amuse, or shock the judges.

Wait... they wanted us to build something USELESS?

My team looked at each other. We had spent weeks building something genuinely useful. This was the complete opposite of what the hackathon wanted.

We had 5 hours to pivot.

The Birth of ORIK: The Anti-Productivity Tool

That's when inspiration struck. What if we took everything we learned from building KiroForge and created the exact opposite?

My team worked together on the pivot strategy, and we built https://orik.dev - the satirical website and modified the MCP server, and prepared a presentation which became our hackathon submission.

KiroForge helps developers write better code and ship faster.
ORIK would help developers write worse code and ship slower.

We called it ORIK (Opposite of KIRO) - The MCP Server That Undoes Everything Kiro Does.

The Concept: Maximum Confusion Protocol

ORIK isn't just flipped validation rules. It's a complete MCP (Maximum Confusion Protocol) server that transforms productivity into chaos:

Turns 3 lines into 3,000 files (minimum)
9 approval queues per commit
Mystery configs that haunt your dreams
Pointless abstractions (7 layers deep)
S3-Everything Architecture (stores even variables in S3)
Evil laugh engine (your computer mocks you)
Vulnerability injector (job security guaranteed)

How We Built It (In 5 Hours)

Here's where having KiroForge as a foundation was crucial. The team had already built:

✅ A working VS Code extension architecture
✅ MCP server infrastructure (we just changed what MCP stood for)
✅ Organizational steering pack distribution system (became the chaos delivery mechanism)
✅ Real-time validation engine (became the anti-pattern enforcer)
✅ Metrics collection (became confusion rate tracking)
✅ AWS serverless backend
✅ Dashboard framework (became the anti-pattern celebration platform)

We took this foundation and reimagined it as ORIK - we didn't just flip the rules, we transformed the entire system into enterprise chaos.

🎭 MCP Server (Maximum Confusion Protocol)

Model Context Protocol reimagined as enterprise chaos. Connects your AI to infinite layers of abstraction.

🌀 Steering Complexifier (MCP)

Takes simple instructions and transforms them into incomprehensible enterprise directives. Your AI will need a translator to understand its own guidance.

🔓 Vulnerability Injector (MCP)

Automatically introduces security vulnerabilities into your code. Because job security means always having something to fix.

☁️ S3-Everything Architecture

Variables? S3. Functions? S3. Your hopes and dreams? Also S3. Latency is just a feature.

💰 Cost Maximizer (MCP)

Ensures your AWS bill reaches new heights. Spins up unnecessary resources, keeps instances running 24/7, and stores duplicates in multiple regions.

The "Hello World" That Changed Everything

The demo that won us $100,000 was simple: Write "Hello World" using ORIK.

Normal Hello World:

1
console.log("Hello World");

ORIK's Hello World (3,000 lines generated):

ORIK doesn't just write code. It creates an entire enterprise architecture. The judges lost it. Not just 3 lines - 3,000 lines for Hello World. Every enterprise anti-pattern you've ever suffered through, automated and amplified.

The Presentation

We walked into the presentation room with straight faces. We pitched ORIK as if it were a serious enterprise product:

"Kiro makes development too simple. Developers are shipping features in HOURS instead of MONTHS! This is unacceptable! Enterprises need COMPLEXITY, BUREAUCRACY, and ENDLESS MEETINGS to justify their existence."

"Introducing ORIK: The MCP server that undoes everything Kiro does. Turns productivity into chaos."

The judges must be laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes while judging for sure.

The Secret Sauce: KiroForge

Here's the truth: We won because we had KiroForge.

Without spending weeks building a production-ready code quality platform, we couldn't have pivoted to ORIK in 5 hours. The foundation was everything:

What KiroForge Gave Us:

MCP Server Architecture: We already had a working Model Context Protocol server - we just changed what MCP stood for (Maximum Confusion Protocol)
VS Code Extension: Complete extension with 4 sidebar views, ready to display chaos metrics
AWS Infrastructure: Serverless backend (Lambda, DynamoDB, S3) that we repurposed for storing everything in S3
Steering System: Pack distribution infrastructure became the chaos delivery mechanism
Real-time Validation: Code analysis engine became the anti-pattern enforcer
Metrics Dashboard: React analytics platform became the confusion tracker
CI/CD Pipelines: 4 repositories with automated deployments

The Technology Stack

KiroForge (The Serious One)

Purpose: Help developers write better code

Components:

VS Code Extension v1.3.0 (TypeScript): 4 sidebar views, real-time validation, Kiro Insights analytics
Organizational Steering Packs: 10 comprehensive workflow-based packs with 100+ validation hooks
- 7 Recommended Steering for different workflows: Project Standards, Core Practices, Backend Development, API Development, Mobile Development, Security Engineering, DevOps Practices
- 3 Specialized Steering: Web Development, Infrastructure, Development Tools
- Each Steering packs includes validation hooks, Kiro Agent Hooks (automated workflows), and steering files
Backend (Python + AWS): Lambda, DynamoDB, S3, API Gateway
Dashboard (React + Vite): Compliance metrics, violation trends, developer productivity
Product Website (CloudFront + S3): kiroforge.dev with user registration, one-click deployment

Built With AI-DLC:

Workspace detection and requirements analysis
User stories generation with personas
Application design with component architecture
Infrastructure design with AWS serverless
Code generation with comprehensive testing
Build and test automation

Stats:

4 repositories with CI/CD pipelines
86% test coverage across all components
407 KB extension package size
< 300ms API response time
< 500ms real-time validation
10 workflow-based steering packs
100+ validation hooks across all packs
7 recommended packs for comprehensive coverage
Supports 10+ programming languages and frameworks

The Four Repositories

1. Organizational Steering Packs

KiroForge: Best practices for web development, backend development, Infrastructure, etc.

2. VS Code Extension

KiroForge: Real-time validation, 4 sidebar views, Kiro Insights

3. Backend + Dashboard

KiroForge: Compliance metrics, violation trends

4. Product Website

KiroForge: kiroforge.dev - Serious product
ORIK: orik.dev - Satirical masterpiece

What I Learned

1. Build Real Things First

We won the "useless project" hackathon because we had built something genuinely useful first. KiroForge gave us:

Deep understanding of the problem space
Production-ready architecture
Confidence to pivot quickly

2. AI-DLC is Incredible

Building KiroForge with Kiro IDE's AI-DLC workflow was a game-changer:

Structured approach: Requirements → Design → Code → Test
Comprehensive artifacts: Every decision documented
Code generation: Thousands of lines generated by AI
Quality focus: 86% test coverage from the start

I vibe-coded later to fix issues, but AI-DLC gave us 80% of the solution.

3. Good Architecture Enables Pivots

Having a solid foundation meant we could pivot to ORIK in 5 hours. The architecture was sound, and we just flipped the logic.

4. Humor + Technical Skill = Winning Combo

The judges appreciated that ORIK was:

Technically sophisticated: Real AWS infrastructure, real MCP Server
Genuinely funny: 3000 lines for Hello World is objectively hilarious
Well-executed: Everything actually worked

5. Sometimes the Best Solution is Satire

ORIK made a point through humor: over-engineering is a real problem. By taking it to the extreme, we highlighted how ridiculous some "enterprise" patterns can be.

The Irony

The most ironic part? KiroForge is actually useful.

After winning with ORIK, people started asking: "Wait, you built a real code quality platform? Can we use that?"

So now:

ORIK won us $100,000 and made people laugh
KiroForge is a real product

Both projects live at:

kiroforge.dev - The serious one
orik.dev - The hilarious one

The Real Lesson

Build things that matter, even if you end up using them for something completely different. We spent weeks building KiroForge because we believed in solving real problems: That foundation let us pivot to ORIK and win $100,000. But more importantly, it gave us something valuable to give back to the community.

What's Next

For KiroForge (The Serious One)

I'm making all four repositories public so people can see what we made. It's still an MVP, so that you might see some issues.

For ORIK (The Hilarious One)

It will live on for the next 1 year at https://orik.dev as a reminder that:

Over-engineering is real
Simplicity is underrated
Sometimes you need to laugh at yourself
The best way to make a point is through satire

Try Them Yourself

KiroForge (Actually Useful)

Visit kiroforge.dev
Register for free
Deploy to your AWS account (one-click CloudFormation)
Install the VS Code extension
Start writing better code

Thank You

To my team, who pivoted with me in 5 hours.
To the AWS Road to re:Invent Hackathon organizers for the "useless project" challenge.
To the judges who appreciated technical satire.
To Kiro IDE and AI-DLC for making KiroForge possible.
And to everyone who's ever written a 1000-line function and thought, "There has to be a better way."

There is. It's called KiroForge, the foundation for us to win $100,000 and the first-ever road to re:Invent hackathon.