As you may know, when Kiro wants to run shell commands, it opens a new zsh (named "Kiro"), runs the command on that shell, and gets the response to analyze the next step.

Unfortunately, if you're using Kiro, zsh, and powerlevel10k theme in OH-My-Zsh together, you may face this problem like I did.

For the first command sent to the shell, it gets a response successfully. However, for the second command in the same shell, Kiro cannot get the response from the shell command and ends up waiting for a response indefinitely.

This problem is so annoying and made me fed up with Kiro.

Recently, I discovered it's due to the incompatibility between powerlevel10k theme and Kiro. So, I found a way to mitigate this problem, which allows me to give Kiro another shot.

We know that:

• If zsh is opened by Kiro, the environment variable TERM_PROGRAM equals "kiro"
• There are 2 personas in Kiro that can open new shells:
  • "Us" as users can use powerlevel10k theme
  • "Kiro" as an IDE can't use powerlevel10k theme

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The Mitigation:

Key Concept: We will not use powerlevel10k theme if the zsh is opened by Kiro

1. In Kiro, add environment variable ENABLE_ZSH_THEME=1 in zsh configuration

   • Edit Kiro settings
   • Change this value (terminal.integrated.profiles.osx)
   • Add environment variable At this stage, zsh opened by you will have environment variable ENABLE_ZSH_THEME=1, while zsh opened by Kiro will not have ENABLE_ZSH_THEME=1

2. Configure ~/.zshrc to match the configuration above

   • Add a condition to load powerlevel10k theme

3. Test by opening zsh yourself and letting Kiro open it to see the result

Expected Result:

• zsh opened by Kiro → no powerlevel10k theme
• zsh opened by You → has powerlevel10k theme

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Benefits

• ✅ Kiro commands work reliably without timeouts
• ✅ Preserves your beautiful terminal theme for regular use**
• ✅ Simple, maintainable solution with minimal configuration
• ✅ No need to completely disable powerlevel10k

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