Updated November 2026

Agentic Coding with Devin Desktop: Devin Local, Devin Cloud, and the Agent Command Center

Class Duration

14 hours of live training delivered over 2-3 days to accommodate your scheduling needs.

Student Prerequisites

Professional software development experience in at least one language
Working knowledge of Git and GitHub
Comfort working in a VS Code-style editor
A Devin account with access to Devin Desktop and Devin Cloud
Prior use of Windsurf or another AI coding assistant is helpful

Target Audience

Software engineers, tech leads, and platform teams who want to hand engineering work to Devin agents. Current Windsurf users will find their settings, extensions, and rules carried over. Teams still weighing editors can start with Choosing Your AI IDE.

Description

Devin Desktop is Cognition's IDE, formerly Windsurf, with an agent manager built in. Devin Local works on your machine, and Devin Cloud runs long sessions on its own virtual machine. This course covers planning, multi-file edits, subagents, and worktrees, then handing work to the cloud. Students ground agents with AGENTS.md, rules, and skills, and extend them with MCP servers and hooks. The course ends with code review, permissions, and usage controls.

Learning Outcomes

Choose between Devin Local and Devin Cloud for a task.
Manage local and cloud agents in the Agent Command Center.
Pick a Devin Local mode for the supervision a task needs.
Plan changes in Plan mode and hand plans to Devin Cloud.
Run subagents and worktree sessions in parallel.
Ground agents with AGENTS.md, rules, and skills.
Extend agents with MCP servers, plugins, and hooks.
Launch Devin Cloud from Slack, Linear, Jira, and GitHub.
Review changes with Quick Review and Devin Review.
Set permissions, sandboxing, and usage controls for a team.

Training Materials

Comprehensive courseware is distributed online at the start of class. All students receive a downloadable MP4 recording of the training.

Software Requirements

Devin Desktop installed (macOS, Windows, or Linux), a Devin account with access to Devin Cloud, a GitHub account with the Devin GitHub integration connected, Git, and optional Slack, Linear, or Jira integrations.

Training Topics

Foundations of Agentic Coding with Devin

The plan, act, observe loop
The Devin product family
From Windsurf to Devin Desktop
Devin Local vs. Devin Cloud
Keeping a human in the loop

The Agent Command Center

The default agent surface
Board and list views
The agent sidebar and child sessions
Grouping work with Spaces
Queued messages and notifications
Switching to the full IDE

Devin Local in the Editor

Multi-step, multi-file tasks
Running commands and installing dependencies
Ask, Plan, Code, and Smart modes
Bypass Permissions mode
The Adaptive model router
Fusion lead and sidekick models
Fast Context and .devinignore
Tab, Command, and the terminal

Planning and Decomposition

Plan mode and clarifying questions
Markdown plan files
Reviewing and implementing a plan
Agent-sized tasks with acceptance criteria
Handing a plan to Devin Cloud

Subagents, Worktrees, and Parallel Work

Foreground and background subagents
Custom subagents as Markdown files
Sessions in Git worktrees
Merging worktree changes back
Parallel sessions without conflicts

Grounding Agents in Context

AGENTS.md and AGENTS.local.md
Rules in .devin/rules/
Rule triggers
Global rules in ~/.devin/
Imported Windsurf rules
Agent Skills in .devin/skills/
Invoking skills with slash commands
Moving Windsurf memories to rules

MCP, Plugins, and Hooks

Adding MCP servers
MCP config in .devin/mcp_config.json
Project and user MCP scopes
Transports and OAuth sign-in
Plugins that bundle skills and hooks
Lifecycle hooks in .devin/hooks.v1.json
Blocking shell commands with hooks

Launching Devin Cloud Agents

Devin Cloud virtual machines
Starting from Slack, Linear, and Jira
Starting from GitHub and the web
Handing off with /handoff in Devin CLI
Onboarding Devin Cloud with skills
Moving Knowledge and Playbooks to skills
Scheduled work with automations

From Issue to Pull Request

Writing agent-ready tickets
Reviewing Devin's branch and PR
Iterating with PR comments
When to take over locally

Agentic Code Review

Quick Review on local changes
Devin Review on pull requests
Bug Catcher findings
Triggering reviews with /devin review
Auto-Fix for review findings
Humans as the merge gate

Multi-Agent Workflows with ACP

The Agent Client Protocol
Running Codex and Claude Agent
Gemini CLI, OpenCode, and Junie
The local ACP registry
Publishing a team registry
Coordinating agents across Spaces

Security, Governance, and Cost

Allow, ask, and deny rules
Approving MCP tool calls
The OS-level sandbox
Network allowlists and denylists
Workspace trust and Restricted Mode
Allowlisted models and MCP allowlists
SSO, SCIM, and role-based access
Usage policies and budgets
Quotas and on-demand credits
ACU billing on Enterprise