# Devin (Cognition)

Source: https://useronboarding.ai/companies/devin

- Category: Onboarding for AI products
- Type: Dev tools
- Product: https://devin.ai

Devin's onboarding puts repository setup before the first task. Users index a repo and configure Devin's environment, then start from a 'What do you want to get done?' box with a repo selector. The team tells new users to treat Devin like a new junior engineer.

## Notes

- CEO Scott Wu says early users "see the blank screen and not really know" what to do, or asked for a whole-codebase re-architecture. Cognition changed the onboarding to steer people to "let's work on getting the repository set up first" and to give Devin "a couple one pointer tasks so it can get familiar with the code base" (Lenny's Podcast, 2025-05-04, ~17:44).
- Wu's one-line onboarding framing: "treat Devin like your new junior engineer". Start with this week's easier tickets, learn what Devin needs to test its own code, then scale up (Lenny's Podcast, ~1:09:31).
- Devin's docs make indexing a repository and configuring the environment prerequisites before the first session (docs.devin.ai, first run).

## Patterns

setup before first task, repo selector on home, mental-model framing (junior engineer)

## Screens

- ![Devin home: 'What do you want to get done?' prompt with the repository selector open ('31/155 repos set up', Connect GitHub)](https://useronboarding.ai/images/devin-1.jpg) Devin home: 'What do you want to get done?' prompt with the repository selector open ('31/155 repos set up', Connect GitHub) (source: https://docs.devin.ai/get-started/first-run)

## Articles

- [Inside Devin: The AI engineer that's set to write 50% of its company's code this year | Scott Wu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI0ZNhA0rvE): Lenny's Podcast (YouTube) (by the product team)
- [Devin Docs: first run](https://docs.devin.ai/get-started/first-run): Devin Docs (by the product team)

## Cited in

- [How do products solve the blank prompt box?](https://useronboarding.ai/questions#blank-box)
- [How do products teach people to prompt?](https://useronboarding.ai/questions#teach-prompting)
- [What counts as activated?](https://useronboarding.ai/questions#activation)