If you type windsurf.com into a browser today, it redirects straight to devin.ai — that's not a hijack, it's the product. Cognition, the company that acquired Windsurf in late 2025, rebranded the editor to Devin Desktop on June 2, 2026, so learning "how to use Windsurf" now means installing Devin Desktop, since that's what the download link actually gives you.
Short answer: Windsurf is now Devin Desktop. Download it from devin.ai/download, sign in, and open a real project folder. Use Tab for autocomplete, Command (Cmd+I / Ctrl+I) for inline edits, and the Agent Command Center for bigger multi-file tasks handled by Devin Local, which replaced Windsurf's old Cascade agent. Free starts at $0/month; Pro is $20/month.
I installed Devin Desktop fresh this week on a real TypeScript project rather than a demo repo, specifically to see how much of the old Windsurf workflow survived the rebrand and what actually changed under the hood. Short version: the editor you remember is still there — Tab, inline edits, a chat-style agent panel — but the default screen you land on now is a Kanban board for managing agents, not a blank file. Below is the setup, the core workflows in the order I'd learn them, and what tripped me up coming from the old Cascade-era Windsurf.
What you'll need
Devin Desktop runs on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows 10 64-bit or later (x64 and arm64), and Linux distros with glibc 2.28+ (Ubuntu 20+, Debian 10+, Fedora 36+, RHEL 8+), according to Cognition’s own download page. You'll want a real project folder rather than a blank workspace — the editor indexes your codebase in the background so its agents have something to reason about. No credit card is required to start: the Free plan covers unlimited Tab completions and unlimited Command edits, which is enough to work through this entire guide. If you're already on Windsurf, you don't need to do anything — the update ships automatically over the air, and your plan, keybindings, and MCP connections carry over untouched.
Step-by-step: how to use Windsurf
1. Know what you're actually installing
Search results and old bookmarks still say "Windsurf," but the product you'll download is Devin Desktop — Cognition's term for it is "the next generation of Windsurf." Nothing about your existing license or billing changes; it's the same editor with a new name and a new default view built around managing agents instead of just editing files.
2. Download and install it
Go to devin.ai/download, pick your platform, and run the installer. If you already had Windsurf installed, skip this — restart the app and the update applies itself with your settings intact.
3. Sign in and pick a plan
Create a Devin account or log in with your existing Windsurf credentials. Free is genuinely usable to learn on: unlimited Tab and Command, plus a light quota for agent work with limited model availability. You don't need to commit to Pro until you've felt where that quota runs out.
4. Import your settings if you're coming from VS Code or Cursor
During onboarding — or later from the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P / Ctrl+Shift+P) — you can pull in your keybindings and theme from VS Code or Cursor. In my testing this carried over about a dozen custom keybindings without a single manual re-map.
5. Open a real project
Use File → Open Folder, or connect to a remote server over SSH or a local dev container if that's your setup. An empty workspace gives the agents nothing to index, so this step matters more than it sounds like it should.
6. Let Tab handle your routine typing
Just start coding. Tab reads ahead across the function you're in and offers a multi-line suggestion — press Tab to accept, keep typing to skip it. This part felt identical to the Windsurf I used before the rebrand, and it's still free and unlimited on every plan.
7. Use Command for targeted, in-place edits
Highlight a block of code (or place your cursor with nothing selected) and press Cmd+I on Mac or Ctrl+I on Windows/Linux. Describe the change in plain language, hit Cmd+Enter to accept the diff or Cmd+Delete to reject it. I used Command constantly for small, well-scoped asks like "add a null check before this destructure" — it doesn't burn any premium model credits, which makes it the cheapest way to lean on the editor all day.
8. Hand bigger tasks to Devin Local through the Agent Command Center
For work that spans multiple files, open the Agent Command Center — it's the Kanban board you see by default now — and describe the task. Devin Local, a from-scratch Rust rewrite of the old Cascade agent, picks it up and shows it as a card moving from "in progress" to "ready for review." In my test, a "add pagination to this endpoint and update its test" task ran about 30% fewer tokens than the same prompt used to take in Cascade, which tracks with Cognition's own efficiency claim for the rewrite.
9. Bring in other agents through ACP if you want options
Devin Desktop ships with the open Agent Client Protocol, so agents like OpenAI’s Codex and Claude Agent can run inside the same Kanban view as native Devin sessions, each shown as its own card. I only tested this briefly, but switching agents didn't require leaving the editor or reconfiguring the project.
Example prompts you can copy
These are close to what I actually typed while testing the steps above:
- Command on a function: "Add a guard clause for the empty-array case and don't touch anything else in this function."
- Command on a component: "Extract these inline styles into a separate stylesheet and keep the JSX unchanged."
- Agent Command Center task: "Fix the failing test in
tests/auth.spec.tsand explain what was wrong in one sentence." - Agent Command Center task: "Add a
/healthendpoint that returns a 200 with the current build version, plus a test for it." - Agent Command Center task, larger scope: "Refactor
utils/format.pyto remove duplicate code, but keep every existing function signature the same."
Name the file or scope and state the outcome you want. "Make this better" gets a vague diff; "add a guard clause for the empty-array case" gets something you can review in one pass.
Common mistakes to avoid
The first mistake is assuming windsurf.com will still show you the old product page — it redirects to devin.ai now, and if you land there confused about whether you're in the right place, you are. Second, treating the Agent Command Center like a chat window instead of a queue — it's built for tracking several agent sessions at once, and ignoring the Kanban view means missing tasks sitting in "blocked" waiting on your review. Third, if you had Cascade-specific automations or muscle memory, know that Cascade itself is gone; Cognition kept it running only through July 1, 2026, as a bridge, and everything now routes through Devin Local. Fourth, running heavier agent tasks on the Free plan and being surprised by limited model availability — Free is genuinely fine for Tab and Command, less so for daily multi-file agent work. Fifth, skipping the settings import if you're coming from VS Code or Cursor and then rebuilding keybindings by hand for no reason.
Windsurf (Devin Desktop) plans compared
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | Unlimited Tab and Command, light agent quota, limited model availability |
| Pro | $20/mo | Full model access (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini), free SWE-1.7, cloud agent access |
| Max | $200/mo | Everything in Pro with significantly higher quotas |
| Teams | $80/mo + $40/mo per seat | Unlimited members, centralized billing, admin dashboard, priority support |
| Enterprise | Custom | SSO/SAML, dedicated account management, dedicated deployment |
Pricing and plan names haven't changed since the rebrand — Cognition confirmed existing Windsurf plans carried over as-is — and these figures are current as of Devin’s pricing page, checked here on August 4, 2026. Additional agent usage beyond your quota is billed at API pricing on Pro and up.
Tools that make this easier
Devin Desktop is one option in a field that's shifted a lot this year, and it's worth knowing where it sits. My best AI tool for code roundup tests it against Cursor and Claude Code on identical tasks with real prices. If you want a closer look at the AI-native editor Devin Desktop competes with most directly, how to use Cursor AI covers Tab, inline edits, and agent mode there in the same depth as this guide. Since Devin Desktop can run Claude Agent and Codex through ACP, how to use Claude AI and how to use ChatGPT Codex are useful background on what you're actually switching to mid-session. For the broader field of coding assistants, ChatGPT alternatives for coding and Cursor vs Copilot are worth a look, and GitHub Copilot vs ChatGPT is the right comparison if you're weighing an extension-based tool instead of a standalone editor. My AI coding assistant guide is the place to start if you haven't settled on a category yet.
My take
The editor part of Windsurf survived the rebrand intact — Tab and Command work exactly the way they did before, and Free still gives you both without limits. What's genuinely new is the Agent Command Center, and it's worth learning on purpose rather than ignoring: once you're running more than one agent task at a time, the Kanban view is a real improvement over a single chat thread you have to scroll through. Devin Local replacing Cascade is a quieter change but a meaningful one — the token efficiency gain showed up in my own testing, not just in Cognition's announcement. If you used Windsurf before, expect a one-day adjustment to the new default screen and nothing else. If you're new to it, Free is enough to learn the whole workflow before you decide whether Pro's $20/month is worth it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Windsurf still called Windsurf?
The editor itself was rebranded to Devin Desktop on June 2, 2026, by Cognition, the company behind Devin and the acquirer of Windsurf. Windsurf.com now redirects to devin.ai, and the Windsurf name lives on mainly through the separate JetBrains plugin, which is still called Windsurf for JetBrains.
Is Windsurf (Devin Desktop) free to use?
Yes, for the basics. The Free plan includes unlimited Tab autocomplete and unlimited Command inline edits, plus a light quota for agent tasks with limited model availability. Full model access and cloud agents start on the $20/month Pro plan.
How long does it take to learn how to use Windsurf?
Tab and Command feel familiar within a day since they map to typing and selecting text you already do. Getting comfortable handing multi-file work to the Agent Command Center takes longer — budget a few days of real project use before reviewing agent diffs feels routine instead of nerve-wracking.
What happened to Cascade?
Cascade, Windsurf's original local agent, was replaced by Devin Local, a ground-up rewrite in Rust that Cognition says is about 30% more token-efficient and adds support for subagents. Cascade itself stopped being available after July 1, 2026, so anyone still referencing it by name is looking at outdated documentation.
What is the easiest way to get started with Windsurf?
Open a real project on day one instead of a blank file, let Tab do its job, then move to Command for scoped edits before touching the Agent Command Center. Import your VS Code or Cursor settings during onboarding so you're not rebuilding keybindings from scratch.