Your first Devin Cloud session, end to end

Most first sessions go badly for the same reason: people hand Devin a task before giving it an environment it can actually build and test in. The setup is the tutorial.

1. Connect your source control

Sign up at app.devin.ai, then go to Settings → Connections and connect your provider. GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps are all documented as supported.

2. Add a repository

Go to Devin’s Machine and click Add repository. This is Devin’s own workspace, not a local checkout.

3. Configure the environment — the step that matters

Here you tell Devin how your project actually runs: dependencies, tooling, secrets, and the lint, test, and run commands.

Get this right and you buy something valuable: Devin can check its own work. An agent that can run your test suite behaves very differently from one that can only write plausible-looking code.

Your configuration is saved as a snapshot — a frozen, bootable image of the environment. The mechanics are worth internalising:

• Every session boots a fresh copy of the snapshot, so each one starts from the same known-good state.
• Changes made during a session do not persist back to the snapshot.
• When you change the configuration, a new snapshot is built automatically.
• Each organisation has exactly one active snapshot.

That last pair of facts explains a common surprise: something Devin installed mid-session is gone next session. That is the design, not a bug. Anything you need permanently belongs in the environment configuration.

4. Start in Ask mode, not Agent mode

Devin Cloud has two modes, and the documented advice is explicit: unless you already have a fully scoped plan, start in Ask mode to construct one, then move to Agent mode to execute it.

Ask mode explores the repository and answers questions without changing code. It also generates context-rich prompts you can carry into an Agent session — so the planning pass is not wasted effort, it is the input to the execution pass.

5. Then hand off to Agent mode

Give Agent mode the plan Ask mode helped you build. Review what comes back the way you would review a competent new colleague’s first pull request: assume the intent is right and the details need checking.

A sane first task

Pick something with a real pass/fail signal — a failing test to fix, a small refactor covered by existing tests, a dependency bump. Resist the urge to open with a greenfield feature. The next guide covers why scope, not model quality, is usually what decides whether a session succeeds.

References

1. First run — docs.devin.ai
2. Environment setup — docs.devin.ai
3. Repo setup — docs.devin.ai

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