🌊 Windsurf is now Devin Desktop: install it and run your first agent

First, the name

On June 2, 2026, Windsurf became Devin Desktop. Cognition — the company behind the Devin coding agent — renamed the IDE it acquired from Codeium. It shipped as a regular over-the-air update: same app, same extensions, same keybindings, same LSPs. Nothing was removed.

Two practical consequences:

• The package is still called windsurf-desktop internally, so existing installs keep updating. You’ll see the old name in paths, process lists, and some docs.
• If your company has allowlists or endpoint policies that only approve “Windsurf”, they may block the renamed binary. That’s an IT conversation, not a technical problem.

The JetBrains plugin is still branded Windsurf. Naming in this corner of the industry is a mess; the underlying agent is the same.

What Devin Desktop is

An AI-first IDE: VS Code fork, extensions, terminal, debugger — plus an agent panel that can plan, edit across files, run commands and read the results. It also connects to Devin Local and, on paid plans, to Cognition’s cloud agents.

The positioning is “the editor that keeps you in flow”: fewer confirmation prompts per turn than Cursor’s agent, more autonomy between checkpoints. That’s pleasant when it’s right and expensive when it’s wrong — which is why the first thing to configure is its permission behavior, not its theme.

Step 1 — Install

Windows: download the installer from devin.ai/download.

macOS: .dmg from the same page.

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu): download the .deb, then install it with sudo apt install ./<file>.deb.

Linux (Fedora/RHEL 8+, CentOS 8+): use the .rpm from the download page — import the signing key first, as documented in the install guide.

Linux (any distro): the .tar.gz build runs without packaging.

Launch it. On first start it offers to import your VS Code or Cursor settings — extensions, themes, keybindings, settings. Accept; it’s the fastest way to a familiar environment.

Step 2 — Sign in and pick a plan

Sign in with GitHub (or your Devin account if you have one). Plans, November 2026:

The Free tier is the most generous of the three big AI editors: unlimited Tab and inline edits, with the agent metered. Start there.

Step 3 — Your first agent task

Open a project folder, then open the agent panel and describe an outcome, not a sequence of steps:

Find where the API client swallows errors, fix it so failures surface in the UI,
and add a test that fails on the current code.

Watch how it behaves before trusting it:

• Does it read files before editing, or guess?
• Does it run the tests it just wrote?
• Does it stop and ask when the task is ambiguous?

Those three habits separate a useful agent from a confident one.

Step 4 — Rules and context

Devin Desktop reads project rules from a rules file at the repo root — the app shows the accepted filename in its rules settings. Keep it short:

# Project rules
- Python 3.12, uv, pytest
- Run `uv run pytest -q` before claiming success
- Never edit `alembic/versions/` without asking

Context hygiene matters more here than in a chat app, because the agent acts on what it reads. Point it at the three files that matter instead of the whole src/ tree.

Step 5 — The autonomy dial

Every AI IDE now ships some version of “how much can it do without asking”. Find that setting on day one:

• Ask before commands — safest; good for production repos.
• Auto-run in workspace — fine for a scratch project with git history.
• Full auto — only in a container or VM you can throw away.

Why autonomy needs a sandbox →

The three AI editors, side by side

If you want the cheapest good agent in an IDE: Devin Desktop Pro at $20. If you want the best completion model and don’t mind $30: Cursor Premium. If your org lives on GitHub: Copilot.