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Before you start your first session, make sure you’ve indexed and set up your repositories. These are the foundational steps that help Devin understand and work with your codebase.
Now that you’re all set up, kick off your first Devin session! This guide will walk you through the new session interface and help you understand the best ways to interact with Devin.

Understanding the Devin Session Page

When you start a new session, you’ll see two primary modes: Ask and Agent.
Unless you already have a fully scoped plan, we recommend starting with Ask to work with Devin on constructing a plan, then moving to Agent mode to execute it.

Ask Mode

Ask Devin is a lightweight mode for exploring your codebase and planning tasks with Devin, without making changes to the actual code. Use Ask mode to:
  • Ask questions about how your code works
  • Explore architecture and dependencies
  • Plan and scope tasks before implementation
  • Generate context-rich prompts for Agent sessions
Ask Mode

Triggering Ask Mode

You can trigger Ask mode from the main page or from a DeepWiki page. For Ask mode from the main page, toggle to Ask mode and select the repository/repositories you want to ask about.
Ask Mode from Main Page
For Ask mode from a DeepWiki page, type a query in the chat input at the bottom of the page and click Ask. This will automatically scope Devin’s knowledge to that repository specifically.
Ask Mode from DeepWiki
Learn more in our Ask Devin guide. Once you’ve worked with Devin to understand the problem and create a plan, you’re ready to move to Agent mode.

Agent Mode

Agent mode is Devin’s full autonomous mode where it can write code, run commands, browse the web, and complete complex tasks end-to-end. Use Agent mode when you’re ready to:
  • Implement features or fix bugs
  • Create pull requests
  • Run tests and debug issues
  • Perform multi-step tasks that require code changes

Triggering Agent Mode

You can trigger Agent mode from the main page or from an Ask Devin session. For tasks that are not fully scoped, we recommend:
  • Start with Ask mode to plan out the task
  • Construct a Devin Prompt, which will draw from your Ask session to create a scoped plan
  • Click Send to Devin to move to Agent mode and execute the task
This flow is shown below:
Ask Mode to Agent Mode
For Agent mode from the main page, toggle to Agent mode and select the repository/repositories you want to work with.
Agent Mode
When starting an Agent session, you’ll configure a few options: selecting a Repository and selecting an Agent.

Selecting a Repository

Select the repository you want Devin to work with. Click the repository selector to see all repositories that have been added to Devin’s machine.
Repository Selector
Selecting a repository ensures Devin:
  • Has access to your codebase and can make changes
  • Uses the correct branch as a starting point
  • Can create pull requests to the right repository

Selecting an Agent

You can choose which agent configuration Devin uses for your session. Different agents may have different capabilities or be optimized for specific types of tasks. Currently, we have a default agent that works well for most tasks, and a data analyst agent named Dana that is optimized for data analysis tasks.
Agent Selector
If you’re unsure which agent to use, the default agent works well for most tasks.

Using @ Mentions

Use @ mentions to give Devin specific context about files, repositories, or other resources. When you type @ in the chat input, you’ll see a dropdown of available mentions:
  • @Repos - Reference a specific repository
  • @Files - Reference a specific file in your codebase
  • @Macros - Reference a macro for a Knowledge entry
  • @Playbooks - Reference a team or community playbook, which are detailed prompt templates that can be used to guide Devin’s behavior.
  • @Secrets - Reference a specific secret (e.g. API keys, credentials, etc.) from Devin’s session manager
At Mentions
@ mentions help Devin understand exactly what you’re working with and reduce ambiguity in your prompts.

Using Slash Commands

Slash commands are shortcuts that expand into predefined prompt templates. Type / in the chat input to see available commands:
  • /plan - Have Devin help you scope and plan a task
  • /review - Set up a code review workflow
  • /test - Create tests or analyze test coverage
  • /think-hard - Have Devin think more carefully about complex problems
  • /implement - Implement a specific feature or change
Slash Commands
Enterprise organizations can also create custom slash commands for team-specific workflows. Learn more in our Slash Commands guide.

Scoping Your First Session

Start with tasks that are smaller in scope and remember to instruct Devin with the level of detail that you would give to a human junior engineer. We’ve seen users work with Devin on everything from fixing small bugs to targeted refactors to large scale migrations.

First-time Prompt Ideas

a new API endpoint
Create a new endpoint /users/stats that returns a JSON object with user count and average signup age. 

Use our existing users table in PostgreSQL. 

You can reference the /orders/stats endpoint in statsController.js for how we structure responses. 

Ensure the new endpoint is covered by the StatsController.test.js suite.
frontend features
In UserProfileComponent, add a dropdown that shows a list of user roles (admin, editor, viewer). 

Use the styling from DropdownBase. 

When a role is selected, call the existing API to set the user role. 

Validate by checking that the selection updates the user role in the DB. Refer to your Knowledge for how to test properly.
unit tests
Add Jest tests for the AuthService methods: login and logout. 

Ensure test coverage for these two functions is at least 80%. 

Use UserService.test.js as an example.

After implementation, run `npm test -- --coverage` and verify the coverage report shows >80% for both functions. 

Also confirm that tests pass with both valid and invalid credentials, and that logout properly clears session data.
or refactoring existing code
Migrate logger.js from JavaScript to TypeScript. 

We already have a tsconfig.json and a LoggerTest.test.js suite for validation. 

Make sure it compiles without errors and make sure not to change the existing config!

After migration, verify by: 
1) running `tsc` to confirm no type errors
2) running the test suite with `npm test LoggerTest.test.js` to ensure all tests pass
3) checking that all existing logger method calls throughout the codebase still work without type errors.
unit tests
We're switching from pg to sequelize (read https://sequelize.org/api/v6/identifiers). 

Please update the UserModel queries to use Sequelize methods. 

Refer to OrderModel for how we do it in this codebase.

After implementation, verify by:
1) running `npm run test:integration UserModel.test.js` to check all integration tests pass
2) confirming query performance hasn't degraded by checking execution time on a test dataset of 1000 users
3) validating that all CRUD operations still maintain data integrity by running `npm run test:e2e user-flows.test.js`
Quick PR
## Overview
The task is to make a quick pull request to a repository.
Since this is a 'quick' PR, you will not need to run any code or test anything; simply make a PR and the user will handle the testing. Your only responsibility is reading and writing code.

## What's Needed From User
- The repository to create a pull request

## Procedure
### Prepare your workspace
1. Navigate to the relevant repository on your machine (clarify with the user if you can't figure it out).
    - Check out the main branch and note down the name of the main branch.
    - Checkout to a new branch since you'll be making a pull request. The name of the branch has to be of the format `devin/<your-branch-name>/X` where X is a random number. For example `devin/fix-popup/3234`. Run `git remote -v && git pull && git checkout -b devin/{branch-name}/$RANDOM` and replace `{branch-name}` with the name of the branch you want to create.
2. Study the request, codebase, and plan out the changes
    - Review the most relevant files and code sections, identifying relevant snippets.
    - Inform the user of your plan
### Work on the PR itself
3. Make the code changes
    - Don't change anything that wasn't specifically requested by the user
4. Make the PR
    - Commit and push the changes and tell the user.
    - See advice section for the exact command to make the PR
    - Make a pull request & review the pr to make sure it looks OK.
    - Ensure all GitHub actions pass successfully & make necessary changes until they do
    - Send the PR link to the user and summarize what you changed.
5. Address any feedback from the review; send the PR link again every time you make any changes
    - If you need to make updates, just push more commits to the same branch; don't create a new one


## Task Specification
- PR link is included in your messages to the user
- PR was reviewed after creation
- PR does not include any stray changes
- PR does not change anything that wasn't specifically requested by the user
- PR description should include a summary of the changes, formatted as a checklist
- PR description should mention that the code was written without testing, and include - [ ] Test the changes as an item
- PR description should include the following footer: "This PR was written by [Devin](https://devin.ai/) :angel:"
- PR description should include any metadata that the user has provided (e.g. linear ticket tags in the appropriate syntax)
- PR description should not be malformatted (use --body-file instead of --body if the newlines are garbled!)

## Forbidden Actions
- Do NOT try to access github.com through the browser, you will not be authenticated.
- NEVER force push on branches! Prefer merging over rebasing so that you don't lose any work.
- Do NOT push directly to the main branch.

## Advice and Pointers
- Double check the name of the main branch (which could be `main` or `master`) using `git branch`.
- For repos with CI/CD on github actions, you can check build logs using the gh cli. if you're asked to fix a build/fix lint, you should start by looking at recent build logs
- Check `git status` before committing or adding files.
- Use `git diff` to see what changes you have made before committing.
- If you're updating an existing repo, use `gh cli` to make pull requests.
- Send the PR link to the user every time you update & ask them to re-review so that it's convenient for them
- You should already be authorized to access any repositories the user tells you about. If not, ask the user for access.
If you’d like to dig in to some more detailed examples of what Devin can do (and how), check out our introductory tutorials below.

Next Steps

Once you’re comfortable with basic sessions, explore these resources to get more out of Devin: