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What are Playbooks?

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Playbooks are easily shareable, reusable prompts for repeated tasks

A playbook is like a custom system prompt for a repeated task. For example, if you need to have many different Devin sessions that each integrate the same third-party library but in different parts of your application, you might want a Playbook.

Playbooks are also easily shareable and reusable, so once anyone succeeds with Devin, others can more easily replicate that success!

Most best practices, style guides, or other project-specific instructions should be shared with Devin by using Knowledge. We recommend reading the docs on Knowledge before creating Playbooks, to understand which method better fits your needs.

We recommend using Playbooks when:

  • You or your teammates will reuse the prompt on multiple sessions.
  • You find yourself repeating the same reminders to Devin
  • The use case may be relevant to others — in your organization or within the Devin user community.

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Getting Started with Playbooks

Playbooks can immediately unlock Devin’s ability to contribute in a wide range of areas, but today require skill to write. Similar to prompt engineering, writing playbooks requires trial and error. The fruit of this labor, though, is a document which unlocks Devin’s ability to independently tackle complex work, from ingesting data into Redshift and performing database migrations to using diverse software and APIs: e.g. Together, Plaid, Stripe, Modal, Springboot, Odoo, and Storybook.

Consider writing your first playbook with a simple multi-step task you want Devin to tackle.

  1. Create a document that outlines…
    1. The outcome you want Devin to achieve
    2. The steps required to get there
  2. Optional: Add sections like Procedure, Specifications, Advice, Forbidden Actions or Required from User
    1. Procedure: Outline the entire scope of the task. Include at least one step for setup, the actual task, and delivery.
    2. Specifications: Describe postconditions - what should be true after Devin is done?
    3. Advice: Include tips to correct Devin’s priors
    4. Forbidden Actions: Include any action Devin should absolutely not take
    5. Required from User: Describe any input or information required from the user
  3. Create the playbook directly in the web app by clicking “Create a new Playbook”. Alternatively, save a file with the file extension .devin.md and drag-and-drop it in the web app when starting a Devin session

You’ve successfully attached a playbook to a sessions if you see a blue pill appear, along with an inline component for editing the playbook before starting your session.

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Writing a Great Playbook

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Procedure

The Procedure section should…

  • Have one step per line, each line written imperatively
  • Cover the entire scope of the task
  • Include at least one step for setup, the actual task, and delivery
  • Aim to make the steps Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive
  • Additional Tips
    • Procedures should help you define the order of Devin’s action - like if/else/loops/goto in code
    • Don’t make tasks too specific unless you really need to, this can reduce Devin’s ability to problem-solve
    • Each procedure step should contain an action verb - e.g. Write, Navigate to, etc.

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Advice and Pointers

Share advice and pointers with Devin if…

  • You have a preferred way of completing the tasks
  • The advice applies to the entire task, or multiple steps. Advice specific to one step should be written next to that step (e.g. as a sub-bullet)
  • You are correcting Devin’s priors. Advice can function like comments on pseudocode that influence its execution.
If the advice only applies to one Procedure step, write the advice under the procedure step using nested bullet points

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Specifications

The Specifications section can be helpful to describe the postconditions of the playbook — what should be true once Devin is done?

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What’s Needed From User

Think through anything necessary but outside of Devin’s control. For example, if the user needs to provide a token or information that is not publicly available to Devin.

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Other Tips + Tactics

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Example Playbook

View example sessions using the playbook below here and here.