--- title: Accelerating AS/400 business rule extraction with Kiro:... description: A step-by-step guide walks through using Kiro, an agentic AI-powered development environment, to extract business rules from legacy AS/400 RPG and COBOL... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/accelerating-as-400-business-rule-extraction-with-kiro-step-by-step-guide-zqbcgfbio twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Accelerating AS/400 business rule extraction with Kiro: Step-by-step guide | daily.dev og:description: A step-by-step guide walks through using Kiro, an agentic AI-powered development environment, to extract business rules from legacy AS/400 RPG and COBOL... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/accelerating-as-400-business-rule-extraction-with-kiro-step-by-step-guide-zqbcgfbio og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ZqbCgFBiO.png og:image:alt: Accelerating AS/400 business rule extraction with Kiro: Step-by-step guide og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Accelerating AS/400 business rule extraction with Kiro: Step-by-step guide **[AWS](https://daily.dev/sources/aws)** · 10 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A step-by-step guide walks through using Kiro, an agentic AI-powered development environment, to extract business rules from legacy AS/400 RPG and COBOL programs and generate modernization-ready documentation. The workflow relies on two Kiro capabilities: steering files (persistent instructions defining project context and templates) and Specs (structured task definitions Kiro executes autonomously). A customer engagement analyzing a five-program, ~40,000-line order fulfillment system reduced effort from 40-80 person-hours over 4-6 weeks to about 12 person-hours over 3 days, with most Kiro-assisted time spent on human review rather than execution. Setup instructions, prerequisites, and a companion GitHub repository with sample code, templates, and Spec definitions are provided. The piece emphasizes that AI-extracted rules still require validation by an AS/400 subject matter expert before acting on them. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How much time can Kiro save when extracting business rules from AS/400 RPG code compared to manual analysis? Kiro reduced a five-program, roughly 40,000-line AS/400 order fulfillment system's rule extraction from 40-80 person-hours over 4-6 weeks down to about 12 person-hours over 3 days, a 70-85% reduction in effort and roughly 90% reduction in timeline. Of the 12 hours, 2 went to setup, 30 minutes to autonomous execution, and 9.5 hours to human review and validation. _daily.dev surfaces practical reports like this for teams weighing AI-assisted approaches to legacy code modernization._ ### What are Kiro's steering files and Specs used for in an AI-assisted development workflow? Steering files are persistent instructions configured once that guide an AI agent's behavior across sessions, covering project context, naming conventions, and analysis standards, and can reference documentation templates for consistent output. Specs are structured definitions of requirements, design, and implementation tasks that the agent executes autonomously with progress tracking, telling it which templates to use and where to save output. _daily.dev helps developers track how agentic coding tools structure autonomous, repeatable workflows._ ### Why is human review still necessary when using AI to extract business rules from legacy RPG code? Automated extraction can occasionally misinterpret complex or ambiguous business logic embedded in legacy RPG and COBOL programs, so a subject matter expert must validate the AI-generated rules before they're acted on for modernization. In one measured engagement, review and validation consumed 9.5 of the total 12 hours of Kiro-assisted effort, far more than setup or execution time. _daily.dev keeps developers informed on where human oversight still matters in AI-driven modernization work._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Multimodal Development with Kiro: From Design to Done](https://daily.dev/posts/multimodal-development-with-kiro-from-design-to-done-bnk6rolbb) · Kiro · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Spec-driven development with Kiro featuring Deepak Singh from AWS \(Changelog Interviews \#662\)](https://daily.dev/posts/spec-driven-development-with-kiro-featuring-deepak-singh-from-aws-changelog-interviews-662--7khags3l9) · Changelog · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#kiro](https://daily.dev/tags/kiro) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/accelerating-as-400-business-rule-extraction-with-kiro-step-by-step-guide-zqbcgfbio) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Accelerating AS/400 business rule extraction with Kiro: Step-by-step guide","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/accelerating-as-400-business-rule-extraction-with-kiro-step-by-step-guide-zqbcgfbio","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/accelerating-as-400-business-rule-extraction-with-kiro-step-by-step-guide-zqbcgfbio"},"datePublished":"2026-09-30T15:45:28.864Z","dateModified":"2026-09-30T15:45:56.068Z","description":"A step-by-step guide walks through using Kiro, an agentic AI-powered development environment, to extract business rules from legacy AS/400 RPG and COBOL...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/7fc774f8436d3ed284c2663692ae7b37?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/7fc774f8436d3ed284c2663692ae7b37?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"AWS","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"AWS","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/aws","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/aws"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/accelerating-as-400-business-rule-extraction-with-kiro-step-by-step-guide-zqbcgfbio","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai-agents,kiro","timeRequired":"PT10M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"AWS","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/aws"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Accelerating AS/400 business rule extraction with Kiro: Step-by-step guide"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/accelerating-as-400-business-rule-extraction-with-kiro-step-by-step-guide-zqbcgfbio#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How much time can Kiro save when extracting business rules from AS/400 RPG code compared to manual analysis?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Kiro reduced a five-program, roughly 40,000-line AS/400 order fulfillment system's rule extraction from 40-80 person-hours over 4-6 weeks down to about 12 person-hours over 3 days, a 70-85% reduction in effort and roughly 90% reduction in timeline. 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