AI coding tools
Devin Operating Card
Delegate bounded repository work to Devin with explicit success criteria, reviewed knowledge and playbooks, and pull-request evidence.
- Format
- Reference
- Level
- Intermediate
- Audience
- Practitioner, Developer, Operator
- Owner
- Project42 Editorial
- Review cadence
- Every 30 days
- Prerequisites
- An approved Devin workspace; A repository connection limited to required projects; A branch and review policy
Delegate outcomes that can be independently reviewed
Devin runs longer-lived software tasks against connected repositories and can use reusable Knowledge and Playbooks. Choose it for bounded work whose environment, required inputs, expected result, and tests can be stated before the session starts.
Grant access only to the repositories and external systems the task needs. Treat Knowledge and Playbooks as versioned operational dependencies, not invisible hints.
Define delivery and forbidden actions
Start with clear success criteria, the target branch, environment setup, required artifacts, and forbidden actions. Prefer a reviewable branch or pull request over direct default-branch mutation.
Monitor the session for blocked assumptions and scope changes. Review the complete diff, test evidence, and external side effects before merging or accepting the result.
Task: [one reviewable repository outcome]
Scope: [repository, branch, services, and data]
Permissions: [repo, network, secrets, and external systems]
Inputs: [issue, Knowledge, Playbook, and environment]
Forbidden actions: [explicit boundaries]
Verification: [tests, PR review, and postconditions]
Recovery: [close session, revert branch, reconcile side effects]Expected evidence and verification
Expected evidence includes the prompt, attached Knowledge or Playbook versions, session activity, branch diff, tests, pull-request review, and any external postcondition checks.
If the session diverges, stop or steer it, preserve the evidence, close unneeded access, revert the isolated branch or affected resources, and restart from a smaller task.