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Windsurf AI Explained: What It Is Now That It's Devin Desktop

Windsurf AI is now Devin Desktop. See what changed when Cognition renamed the editor, replaced Cascade with Devin Local, and what happened to Windsurf Memories.

July 29, 2026 · 7 min read

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Photo by Štefan Štefančík on Unsplash

Windsurf AI is now Devin Desktop: Cognition folded the editor into its Devin product line on June 2, 2026, replacing Cascade with a Rust-based Devin Local agent, adding an open Agent Client Protocol, and switching to quota pricing — but persisted Memories didn't carry over, leaving teams to rebuild that context layer themselves.

How Windsurf Became Devin Desktop

Cognition, the company behind the autonomous coding agent Devin, acquired Windsurf (formerly Codeium) in July 2025. On June 2, 2026, it folded the editor fully into its own product line, renaming it Devin Desktop and redirecting windsurf.com to devin.ai.

The most visible change is where the app opens. Devin Desktop now defaults to the Agent Command Center, a Kanban-style board for tracking local and cloud agent sessions, pull requests, and shared context, instead of dropping you straight into the code editor canvas.

One brand, four surfaces

Devin is now organized as a single brand spanning Devin Desktop (the editor), Devin Cloud (the autonomous cloud agent), Devin CLI, and Devin Review. The rebrand folds what used to be a standalone Windsurf identity into that structure.

Devin Desktop also launched with support for the Agent Client Protocol (ACP), an open, Apache 2.0-licensed standard similar in spirit to the Language Server Protocol. Through ACP, agents like Codex, Claude Agent, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, and Junie can run inside the editor as first-class agents rather than bolt-on integrations.

For most day-to-day users, the rebrand did not force a relearning curve: keybindings, extensions, LSPs, and the classic editing canvas carried over unchanged underneath the new agent-first shell.

From Cascade to Devin Local: What Changed Under the Hood

Windsurf's original local agent, Cascade, has been rewritten from scratch in Rust and renamed Devin Local. It became the default local agent on June 2, 2026, the same day as the Devin Desktop rebrand.

Cognition states Devin Local is roughly 30% more token-efficient than Cascade and adds native subagent support — a session can spin up specialized sub-sessions to handle parts of a task in parallel before reporting back to the main thread.

Cascade did not disappear immediately. It stayed reachable in a legacy mode only through July 1, 2026, after which Cognition removed it entirely, leaving Devin Local as the only local agent option.

AspectCascade (legacy)Devin Local
RuntimeOriginal implementationRewritten in Rust
Token efficiencyBaseline~30% more efficient
SubagentsNot supportedSupported
AvailabilityRemoved July 1, 2026Default since June 2, 2026
Persisted memoriesYesNot at launch

The practical effect for existing Windsurf users is that migration off Cascade was never optional — it was a fixed deadline. Anyone still relying on Cascade-specific configuration should confirm those settings translated into Devin Local before the cutover date passed.

The Memory Gap: What Windsurf Memories Did That Devin Local Doesn't

Windsurf's Memories feature was one of its most-cited differentiators: it captured corrections, coding conventions, and API preferences automatically across sessions, so Cascade behaved consistently without a developer re-explaining the same rules every time.

At launch, Devin Local does not persist memories between sessions, according to Cognition's own desktop documentation. Workflows, Codemaps, App Deploys, Conversation Sharing, and the Fast Context UI are also absent from the initial Devin Local release.

  • Memories: not carried over from Cascade at launch
  • Workflows: not available in Devin Local
  • Codemaps: not read by Devin Local
  • App Deploys: not supported by Devin Local
  • Conversation Sharing and Fast Context UI: also missing at launch

Cognition's partial answer is Spaces, a shared-context container that bundles local sessions, cloud Devin sessions, pull requests, files, and task context, so a new session opened inside a Space inherits that context instead of starting cold. It is a per-project container, though, not the same continuously-learned preference model Memories provided.

Cognition's own guidance points teams toward migrating critical memories into skills — reusable instruction files — as the interim substitute while persisted memory catches up to where Cascade left off.

The gap matters most for teams running long, multi-week features where an agent used to remember prior corrections on its own. Until parity ships, that consistency now has to be maintained explicitly, in files the team controls, rather than assumed as a background capability of the editor.

Devin Desktop Pricing and Plans in 2026

Windsurf's pricing structure changed before the rebrand: since March 19, 2026, Cognition replaced the old monthly credit pool with a quota system, so usage refreshes daily and weekly instead of running out mid-month.

  • Free: $0/month, limited daily quota, local agent only
  • Pro: $20/month, standard quotas, unlocks Devin Cloud access
  • Max: $200/month, the highest individual quota tier
  • Teams: $40 per user/month, centralized billing across a team
  • Enterprise: custom pricing, carried over from legacy Windsurf Enterprise contracts

The Pro tier is the threshold that matters most for solo developers: it is the first plan that unlocks access to Devin Cloud, the autonomous cloud agent, rather than restricting usage to the local editor agent.

Existing Windsurf Enterprise customers were not forced into renegotiation. Their legacy pricing, plan, and settings carried over automatically as part of the rebrand, arriving as a standard update rather than a migration project.

The shift to daily and weekly quotas addresses a specific complaint about the old credit system: heavy users could burn an entire month's allotment in a single weekend and then had to buy extra credits at API pricing to keep working.

Deciding Whether Devin Desktop Fits Your Workflow

The strongest argument for Devin Desktop is openness: through ACP, a single editor can run Claude Agent, Codex, Gemini CLI, or an in-house agent side by side, instead of locking a team into one vendor's model choices.

The strongest argument against switching right now is the memory gap. Teams whose workflow leaned on Memories as the primary way to keep an agent aligned with team conventions are, for the moment, worse off than they were under Cascade.

  • Want one command center for local and cloud agents: Devin Desktop fits well.
  • Rely on Memories for team conventions: expect to rebuild that layer with skills or external context files for now.
  • Need Cascade specifically: no longer possible after July 1, 2026.
  • Want to keep using Claude Agent or Codex inside the editor: ACP support makes that straightforward.

Because Cascade has been fully removed rather than kept as a fallback, there is no non-destructive way to stay on the old agent. The practical question for existing Windsurf users is no longer whether to move to Devin Desktop, but how to migrate the conventions Cascade used to remember.

Whichever agent runs inside the editor, the safest hedge against the next rebrand is the same one that would have preserved Memories through this one: keep team conventions, decisions, and corrections written down in files the team owns, not solely inside a vendor's session memory.

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Context Keeper Team

The Context Keeper team builds tools that keep AI coding agents productive. We write about AI agent workflows, context management, and developer productivity from first-hand experience.

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