Windsurf

Windsurf is an AI-native code editor originally built by Codeium, designed around an agentic assistant called Cascade that could read a codebase, plan multi-file changes, and execute them with minimal hand-holding. Codeium rebranded itself as Windsurf in April 2025, and by mid-2026 the editor had drawn more than a million developers. In July 2025, Cognition, the company behind the Devin coding agent, acquired Windsurf’s product, trademark, and team. On June 2, 2026, Cognition shipped an update that renamed Windsurf to Devin Desktop, replacing Cascade with a new local agent and reorganizing the editor around an Agent Command Center. For developers researching Windsurf today, the name lives on as Devin Desktop, and Cascade itself reached end of life on July 1, 2026.

How Windsurf works

Windsurf, now shipping as Devin Desktop, is built on a VS Code foundation with an agent layered directly into the editor rather than bolted on as a plugin. The agent tracks your files, terminal output, and conversation history to infer what you are trying to do next, then acts on multi-step tasks instead of only completing single lines. Here is how the pieces fit together:

Local agent: Cascade was the original in-editor agent; as of the June 2026 rebrand it has been replaced by Devin Local, a rewritten version built for lower token usage and parallel subagents, task threads the agent runs at the same time to work on separate parts of a problem.
Flow awareness: the agent watches file edits, terminal commands, and clipboard activity to stay aligned with your current task without you re-explaining context in every message.
Agent Command Center: the default launch screen is now a Kanban-style board of every local and cloud agent session, letting you dispatch and monitor several agents instead of babysitting one at a time.
Agent Client Protocol (ACP): an open standard, comparable to how the Language Server Protocol standardized language tooling, that lets other agents like Claude Agent, Codex, and Gemini CLI run inside the same editor as first-class citizens.
Tool use and MCP: the editor connects to external services like Figma, Slack, and Stripe through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard for linking AI agents to outside tools and data.
Cloud agents: for longer-running work, tasks can be handed off to Devin Cloud so the agent keeps working after you close the editor.

What you can build with Windsurf

Multi-file feature implementation: describe a feature in plain language and let the local agent edit every file it touches, from backend logic to the UI, while tracking your recent edits and terminal commands for context.
Bug triage and fix pipeline: paste an error or describe a symptom and have the agent trace it through the codebase, propose a fix, and run your tests to confirm it works.
Multi-agent task board: use the Agent Command Center to dispatch several coding tasks at once, local and cloud, and review each one as it moves from in progress to ready for review.
Custom tool integrations: connect the editor to Figma, Slack, Stripe, or your own internal APIs through MCP so the agent can pull design specs or trigger workflows mid-task.
One-click app previews and deploys: build a small web app, preview it live inside the editor, and deploy it to the public internet without leaving your workflow.
Cross-agent evaluation: since the editor supports the open Agent Client Protocol, you can run and compare different agents, like Claude Agent or Codex, on the same task inside one interface.