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Generate a Team-Specific Devin Onboarding Guide

Devin reads its own documentation and generates a getting-started guide customized to your team's stack, integrations, and workflows — ready to share in Notion or Slack.
AuthorCognition
CategoryDevin Optimization
FeaturesMCP
1

Prompt Devin to generate your guide

Devin has built-in access to its own documentation through the Devin Docs MCP — no setup or configuration needed. It can search and read the full docs site, API reference, changelog, and best practices on demand.Instead of sending new engineers a list of docs links, have Devin distill exactly what your team needs into a single onboarding guide with prompts, workflows, and examples tailored to your stack.
2

Review the generated guide

Devin searches its docs for each topic, reads the relevant pages, and synthesizes a complete onboarding guide matched to your stack and workflow. Here’s what the output looks like:
# Getting Started with Devin — Acme Engineering Team

## 1. Starting a Session
| Method | When to use | Example |
|--------|-------------|--------|
| **Slack** — message @Devin | Quick, scoped tasks | "Fix the failing CI in api-service" |
| **Web app** — app.devin.ai | Longer tasks needing file attachments or playbooks | Attach a migration playbook + spec file |

## 2. Writing Effective Prompts
Devin works best with specific, scoped requests. Always include
the file path, what's broken, and when it started.

❌ "Fix the login bug"
✅ "The login form at src/pages/Login.tsx returns a 401 for valid
   credentials since the JWT key rotation on Friday. Check the
   auth middleware at src/middleware/auth.ts."

## 3. Linear Integration
Go to Settings > Integrations > Linear and authorize. Once
connected, Devin can:
- Pick up tickets assigned to it automatically
- Update ticket status as it works
- Link PRs to the originating Linear ticket

See the full setup guide: docs.devin.ai/integrations/linear

## 4. Playbooks for Recurring Tasks
Create reusable prompts at Settings > Playbooks > Create New.
For our Express-to-Fastify migration, the playbook should include:
- The target module path (e.g., src/services/payments/)
- Test commands: npm run test:api && npm run test:integration
- Rollback steps if the migration breaks downstream consumers

## 5. Knowledge — Teaching Devin Our Conventions
Add team conventions at Settings > Knowledge > Add Knowledge.

Example entry:
  Trigger: "working on API routes"
  Content: "We use Fastify, not Express. All routes live in
  src/routes/. Run npm run test:api before committing.
  Error responses must use the ApiError class from src/lib/errors.ts."
3

Extend the guide with follow-ups

Keep the same session open — Devin retains context and can extend the guide with additional sections.
4

Share the guide and keep it current

Once the guide looks good, share it and save it as Knowledge so Devin itself can reference your team’s conventions:
  1. Share the guide — paste the Notion page into your #engineering channel or pin it in your team wiki
  2. Save it as Knowledge — go to Settings > Knowledge > Add Knowledge, set the trigger to "onboarding new team members to Devin", paste the guide content, and pin it to all repositories
Now when any team member asks Devin “how should I write prompts?” or “how do I connect Linear?”, it pulls from your customized guide — not generic docs.As Devin ships new features, ask it to update the guide in the same session format: “Read the latest changelog and update our onboarding guide with any new features that affect our workflows.”