kiro-cli shell integration unconditionally exec-wraps all zsh sessions — no opt-out mechanism

[seino-tsuyoshi]

Summary

kiro-cli init zsh pre unconditionally replaces the current zsh process with kiro-cli-term via exec in every interactive shell session. This causes several problems and there is no documented way to disable it.

Environment

• OS: macOS 15.5 (Darwin 25.4.0, Apple Silicon)
• Terminal: iTerm2 3.6.9
• Shell: zsh
• kiro-cli version: Installed via Kiro CLI.app (/opt/homebrew/bin/kiro-cli)
• pyenv version: 2.6.23 (Homebrew)

How the shell integration works

1. kiro-cli installer adds hooks to ~/.zshrc:

   # pre block
   [[ -f "${HOME}/Library/Application Support/kiro-cli/shell/zshrc.pre.zsh" ]] && builtin source "..."
   # post block
   [[ -f "${HOME}/Library/Application Support/kiro-cli/shell/zshrc.post.zsh" ]] && builtin source "..."

2. The pre-init script runs eval "$(kiro-cli init zsh pre --rcfile zshrc)", which outputs:

   Q_TERM_NAME="$(basename "${Q_SHELL}") (kiro-cli-term)"
   exec -a "${Q_TERM_NAME}" "${Q_TERM_PATH}"

3. This exec replaces every interactive zsh process with kiro-cli-term, regardless of whether the user wants Kiro's inline completions or AI suggestions.

Problems

1. Killing kiro-cli-term closes iTerm2 tabs

Since exec replaces the shell process, kiro-cli-term is the tab's process. Running kill <pid> or pkill kiro-cli-term closes the entire iTerm2 tab (or all tabs if killing all instances). This is extremely confusing — users expect to be killing a Kiro background process, not their terminal session.

Process tree evidence:

iTermServer-3.6.9
  └── login
      └── zsh (kiro-cli-term)   ← this IS the iTerm2 tab

2. Conflicts with pyenv rehash

Each shell startup triggers pyenv rehash (via eval "$(pyenv init -)"). When many shells start simultaneously (e.g., IDE launching multiple terminal tabs, CI tools, or terminal multiplexers), the kiro-cli-term exec adds overhead to shell startup, and pyenv's rehash lock contention causes:

pyenv: cannot rehash: couldn't acquire lock /Users/.../.pyenv/shims/.pyenv-shim for 60 seconds.

This happened 4 times before we traced it to the shell integration spawning additional shell init cycles.

3. No opt-out mechanism

There is no documented environment variable (e.g., KIRO_CLI_DISABLE_SHELL_INTEGRATION=1) or config option to disable the shell integration while keeping kiro-cli installed. The only workaround is manually commenting out the lines in ~/.zshrc, which may be overwritten on updates.

Expected behavior

• Provide an environment variable or config option to disable shell integration (e.g., KIRO_CLI_DISABLE_SHELL_INTEGRATION=1)
• Or: only wrap sessions when explicitly opted in, rather than wrapping all interactive shells unconditionally
• Document the opt-out mechanism in the CLI docs

Current workaround

Comment out all three Kiro shell integration lines in ~/.zshrc:

# [[ -f "${HOME}/Library/Application Support/kiro-cli/shell/zshrc.pre.zsh" ]] && ...
# [[ "$TERM_PROGRAM" == "kiro" ]] && . "$(kiro --locate-shell-integration-path zsh)"
# [[ -f "${HOME}/Library/Application Support/kiro-cli/shell/zshrc.post.zsh" ]] && ...

kiro-cli chat (non-interactive mode) continues to work perfectly without the shell integration.

Related issues

• excessive CPU usage by kiro-cli-term #4031 (excessive CPU usage by kiro-cli-term)
• kiro-cli-term PTY wrapper drops typeahead input (zsh, macOS Tahoe) #5711 (kiro-cli-term PTY wrapper drops typeahead input)
• [Bug] kiro-cli-term PTY wrapper creates persistent tty mismatch in tmux panes #6037 (kiro-cli-term creates persistent tty mismatch in tmux)

[github-actions]

🤖 Potential Duplicate Detected

This issue appears to be similar to:

• #5711: kiro-cli-term PTY wrapper drops typeahead input (zsh, macOS Tahoe) (85% similar)
• #5414: zsh malloc stack logging warning on macOS startup (85% similar)
• #4981: Kiro changes title of the terminal making it hard to know which terminal tab is doing what (85% similar)
• #4940: Kiro does not respect ZSH's $ZDOTDIR and creates it's own .zsh* files in $HOME (85% similar)

What happens next?

• ⏰ This issue will be automatically closed in 3 days
• 🏷️ If this is not a duplicate, you can prevent automatic closure by adding a comment or reacting with 👎 to this message.
• 💬 Comment on the original issue if you have additional information

Why is this marked as duplicate?
Both issues report problems with kiro-cli-term PTY wrapper functionality - the new issue mentions kiro-cli-term process replacement and references issue #5711 specifically as a related problem with the same component

[seino-tsuyoshi]

This is not a duplicate of any of the listed issues. Here's why:

Suggested duplicate	What it reports	This issue
#5711	PTY wrapper drops typeahead input	exec unconditionally wraps all zsh sessions with no opt-out
#5414	zsh malloc stack logging warning	No opt-out env var or config to disable shell integration
#4981	Terminal tab title changed	kill kiro-cli-term closes iTerm2 tabs (because exec replaced the shell)
#4940	ZDOTDIR not respected	pyenv rehash lock contention caused by extra shell init overhead

The common thread in the suggested duplicates is the kiro-cli-term component, but none of them address the core request here:

Provide an opt-out mechanism (e.g., KIRO_CLI_DISABLE_SHELL_INTEGRATION=1) so users can keep kiro-cli installed and use kiro-cli chat without having every interactive shell session replaced by kiro-cli-term via exec.

[github-actions]

Thank you for your feedback! 🙏

The duplicate label has been removed and this issue has been sent back for maintainer review.

A maintainer will review this issue shortly.