Cognition, the creator of the AI software developer, Devin, has announced several new features in the tool that will make it a “more collaborative, knowledgeable, and productive teammate.”

The company introduced Playbooks, which are documents that provide instructions to Devin on common software development tasks. Developers can also specify success criteria and guardrails specific to their project. 

Developers can create and share their own Playbooks, or browse Cognition’s gallery of common Playbooks, which include tasks like web scraping and converting Python notebooks to scripts. 

“Playbooks minimize the back and forth needed to guide Devin to complete a task successfully, as they communicate the necessary instructions and details upfront,” Cognition wrote in a post.

Another new feature that helps with onboarding Devin is the Knowledge feature that lets developers share documentation, tips, internal libraries, and other materials so that it can more effectively adapt to the organization. 

“We recommend using Knowledge in combination with Playbooks. Create Playbooks for common, recurring tasks, and make sure to include best practices for those tasks in the Playbook. Add Knowledge to teach Devin general context about your organization that is relevant for all runs, with and without Playbooks,” Cognition wrote. 

In addition, developers will now be able to access Devin’s browser, editor, and shell, which will allow them to take actions instead of relying solely on Devin to act on its instructions.

Cognition also introduced Machine Snapshots, which are essentially save states for Devin. According to the company, these can be useful for resuming previous sessions or performing a one-time installation and then starting new sessions from that point. 

Other new features users can utilize include:

  • The ability to trigger Devin from Slack, GitHub, or Linear events
  • A new secrets manager
  • Options for pausing, terminating, or keeping sessions alive in the web interface
  • An easier way to get a summary of all code changes Devin has made

There is still currently a waitlist for the tool, but Cognition says it is opening up new slots on a weekly basis. 

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