Devin environment setup

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What is Devin’s environment?

Devin’s environment is the workspace where Devin operates: a Linux-based virtual machine with your repositories cloned, tools installed, dependencies resolved, environment variables set, and configuration applied. It’s the equivalent of a developer’s laptop: the OS, the terminal, the installed toolchain, the cloned repos, and the credentials and settings those tools need. Your environment configuration is saved as a snapshot: a frozen, bootable image that every session starts from. Configure it once, and every session boots into that known-good state.

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Why environment configuration matters

Devin works the same way any developer does: it clones repos, installs dependencies, runs lint, compiles code, and executes tests. To do any of that, it needs a working environment. Without one, Devin can’t build your project, can’t run your tests, and can’t verify its own work. It would be like hiring a developer and not giving them a laptop. Environment configuration gives Devin the tools, runtimes, credentials, environment variables, and project knowledge it needs to be productive from the first session. It also makes sessions faster: your snapshot already has repos cloned and dependencies installed, so Devin boots straight into productive work instead of setting up from scratch every time. This is the single highest-leverage thing you can do to improve Devin’s effectiveness on your codebase.

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How sessions work

Every session boots from a snapshot, a frozen, bootable image of the environment.

1. Snapshot: A pre-built image containing your repos, tools, and dependencies. Prepared in advance through configuration.
2. Session: Devin boots a fresh copy of the snapshot. Every session starts from the same clean state. Session changes don’t persist back to the snapshot.

When your configuration changes, a new snapshot is built automatically. Each organization has exactly one active snapshot. Every session in that org boots from the same snapshot.

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Before you start

Before configuring Devin’s environment, make sure Devin can access your repositories:

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Set it up by asking Devin

This is the simplest way to configure Devin’s environment and works for most repositories. Start a Devin session and ask: “Set up your environment for this repo.” For the full walkthrough, see Let Devin do it.

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Environment variables and secrets

Environment variables are part of your blueprint. Define non-sensitive values in a step’s env field or write shared values to $ENVRC; see the environment templates for the $ENVRC and direnv patterns. Devin can infer tools and dependencies from your repository, but it cannot discover your credentials. Store sensitive values as encrypted Secrets in the blueprint editor’s Secrets tab, then reference them as $VARIABLE_NAME. Secrets are injected as environment variables during builds and sessions; see the blueprint secrets guide and environment variables and secrets reference.

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Choose your approach

Asking Devin is the default. If you want to author the configuration yourself, use declarative configuration, the recommended manual path. Blueprints describe your environment, and builds automatically produce snapshots.

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