How to Use Devin AI for Startup Development Quickly

AI coding tools promise to write your entire app, but here’s the catch: without a system to track what they’re building, you’re trading one problem for another.

This guide walks you through using Devin AI for startup development while keeping your projects organized, your team aligned, and your AI-generated code under control.

Devin AI for Startup Development

What Is Devin AI?

Devin AI is an autonomous AI software engineer created by Cognition AI. It can independently write, debug, and deploy code from start to finish. Think of it less like a code suggestion tool and more like a junior developer on your team, complete with its own code editor, web browser, and command line shell.

This AI agent has shown impressive results on the SWE-bench, resolving 13.86% of issues, a benchmark that tests an AI’s ability to solve real-world software engineering problems from GitHub. This performance establishes its credibility as a capable AI programmer.

Devin is designed for engineering teams, especially startups with limited developer resources, who need to accelerate their development velocity and ship products faster.

For a startup, the pressure to build and iterate quickly with a small team is constant. This often leads to a painful choice between developing new features or fixing bugs, causing technical debt to pile up that consumes 20-40% of developers’ time. Devin AI helps you extend your engineering capacity without hiring, automating repetitive coding tasks so your team can focus on high-impact work.

However, handing off tasks to an AI creates a new challenge: how do you manage the work? Without a proper project management system, you can lose track of what Devin is building, creating context sprawl—when teams waste hours searching for information across disconnected apps and platforms—and making it impossible to maintain visibility.

Solution: Eliminate context sprawl and keep all AI-generated development organized, tracked, and reviewed in a converged workspace like ClickUp.

📮ClickUp Insight: Context-switching is silently eating away at your team’s productivity. Our research shows that 42% of disruptions at work come from juggling platforms, managing emails, and jumping between meetings. What if you could eliminate these costly interruptions?

ClickUp unites your workflows (and chat) under a single, streamlined platform. Launch and manage your tasks from across chat, docs, whiteboards, and more—while AI-powered features keep the context connected, searchable, and manageable!

Try ClickUp for free!

What Devin AI Can Do for Startup Teams

Startups are in a constant race against time, and a limited engineering team can feel like a major bottleneck. You’re trying to build an MVP, fix bugs, and keep the backlog from overflowing, all at once. This stretch on resources slows your time-to-market and can lead to developer burnout.

Devin AI excels at taking on well-defined, repeatable tasks that would otherwise consume your developers’ valuable time. It acts as a force multiplier, handling the grunt work so your team can focus on innovation.

Here are the core ways startups can use this AI software engineer to gain a competitive edge: 🛠️

Build and deploy MVPs end to end

Getting a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to market is critical for validating your startup’s idea, but it can take months of development work. This delay means you’re burning through cash and giving competitors a chance to catch up.

Devin can take a detailed prompt describing an application and build a functional prototype from scratch, dramatically shortening this cycle.

The workflow is straightforward: Devin sets up the development environment, writes the necessary code, runs tests to ensure functionality, and can even deploy the application to production. This allows you to get real user feedback in days or weeks, not months.

Here are a few examples of MVPs Devin can build:

Web applications: Landing pages, user dashboards, and simple CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) apps using common frameworks
API integrations: Tools for connecting third-party services or building internal data pipelines
Internal tools: Admin panels for managing users, reporting dashboards, and scripts for automating internal processes

💡 Pro Tip: Devin works best with clear, detailed specifications. Vague prompts lead to unpredictable results. To avoid this, you need a system for defining and tracking requirements. Gain full visibility into what Devin is building by creating detailed tasks for each feature in ClickUp.

Automate bug fixes and backlog work

For many startups, the bug backlog is a source of constant stress. It grows faster than your team can shrink it, leading to a buggy product and mounting technical debt. Developers are forced to choose between fixing old issues and building new, revenue-generating features.

Devin can autonomously triage issues from your backlog. It can identify the root cause of a bug, write the code to fix it, and submit the solution as a pull request in GitHub for your team to review.

This is ideal for tackling common backlog items, such as:

Dependency updates: Upgrading outdated packages and resolving any compatibility issues that arise
Test failures: Diagnosing why a test is failing and implementing a fix to get your test suite passing again
Minor UI bugs: Correcting styling issues, fixing broken links, or resolving display problems on different devices

💡 Pro Tip: While Devin proposes the fix, a human engineer should always review the code before it’s merged. Streamline your entire process by automating repetitive steps with ClickUp Automations. Keep your workflow smooth and transparent by automatically assigning bug-labeled tasks to Devin and updating statuses with ClickUp Automations.

ClickUp Automations and Agents help you work smarter, not harder

Handle code migrations and refactors

Large-scale codebase changes, like framework upgrades or API migrations, are often tedious, time-consuming, and risky. For a small startup team, these projects can derail the product roadmap for weeks. This is another area where Devin can provide significant leverage.

You can delegate well-defined refactoring tasks to Devin, which can learn your codebase’s patterns and apply changes consistently across hundreds of files. This frees up your senior developers to focus on more complex architectural challenges.

Common migration tasks for Devin include:

Language or framework updates: Migrating a codebase from Python 2 to 3 or converting React class components to functional components
API migrations: Updating all instances of a deprecated API endpoint across the application
Code style enforcement: Applying new linting rules or formatting standards consistently to the entire codebase

💡 Pro Tip: Get a clear, high-level view of migration progress and ensure nothing is missed in the refactor by tracking each migration step with ClickUp Custom Fields.

Watch this video to learn how AI Agents can help scale your development processes:

How Devin AI Works

It’s easy to think of AI coding tools as a “black box,” which can be unsettling when you’re trusting it with your codebase. Understanding how Devin works helps demystify the process and allows you to structure tasks more effectively. Unlike simple code completion tools, Devin is a true AI agent with access to its own sandboxed development environment.

This means it doesn’t just suggest code; it actively works on it. The architecture has three key components that allow it to function like a human developer.

Planning and reasoning: Before writing any code, Devin breaks down a task into a logical sequence of steps. It then explains its plan to you, giving you a chance to review its approach and provide feedback
Tool use: Devin has its own toolkit, including a code editor to write and modify files, a terminal to run commands, and a web browser to look up documentation. This allows it to perform complex tasks that require more than just code generation
Version control: The AI agent integrates directly with GitHub to create branches, commit changes, and open pull requests. It follows standard development practices, making its work easy to review and merge

Devin operates on a human-in-the-loop model. It works autonomously on a task but will pause and wait for your approval at critical checkpoints. This ensures you always have the final say. Over time, it learns by reading your documentation and exploring your codebase, adapting to your team’s specific patterns and standards.

📚 Also Read: How to Choose Code Collaboration Platforms

How to Get Started With Devin AI

Getting a powerful new tool like Devin integrated into your startup’s workflow can feel like a huge undertaking. You might worry about a complicated setup, managing permissions, or the tool not working well with your existing stack. A messy onboarding process can lead to wasted time and a tool that nobody uses.

The good news is that getting started with Devin is a structured process. Proper onboarding is the foundation for effective AI-assisted development.

First, you’ll need to create an account on the Cognition AI platform. Devin’s plans are typically based on usage volume, with different tiers available depending on how much you expect to use it. The model is session-based, meaning tasks consume a certain amount of compute time.

For a startup, it’s wise to start with a smaller plan. This allows you to test out different workflows and understand your usage patterns before committing to a larger, more expensive plan.

Connect GitHub and project management tools

Once you have an account, the next step is to connect Devin to your development ecosystem. The most critical integration is with GitHub. This involves installing the Devin GitHub App and granting it access to the repositories you want it to work on. You’ll need to give it read/write permissions so it can create branches and open pull requests.

You can also connect Devin to other tools for a more seamless workflow.

GitHub: Install the app, select which repositories Devin can access, and configure branch permissions to protect your main branches
Slack: Connect your account to receive real-time notifications about Devin’s progress and when pull requests are ready for review
Project management: Link Devin to your issue tracker for easy task assignment

The biggest risk with adding a new tool is creating another information silo. To avoid this, centralize all your development work—both human and AI-generated—in one place. Automatically link pull requests and commits back to your ClickUp Tasks using the GitHub integration. When Devin opens a PR, the corresponding task is updated instantly, eliminating the context sprawl between your code and your project plan.

ClickUp and GitHub integration interface used to sync pull requests, commits, and tasks — ClickUp integrates with GitHub

📮ClickUp Insight: 88% of our survey respondents use AI for their personal tasks, yet over 50% shy away from using it at work. The three main barriers? Lack of seamless integration, knowledge gaps, or security concerns. But what if AI is built into your workspace and is already secure?

ClickUp Brain, ClickUp’s built-in AI assistant, makes this a reality. It understands prompts in plain language, solving all three AI adoption concerns while connecting your chat, tasks, docs, and knowledge across the workspace. Find answers and insights with a single click!

Try ClickUp Brain now

Your First Task With Devin AI

Diving in with a massive project is a recipe for frustration. Your first task with Devin should be small, well-defined, and low-risk. This will help you and your team understand its workflow, capabilities, and limitations without derailing your sprint.

Good first tasks include updating a single dependency, adding a very simple feature, or fixing a well-documented bug. The goal is to learn, not to solve your biggest engineering challenge right away.

Write an effective prompt

The quality of Devin’s work is directly tied to the quality of your prompt. Vague instructions lead to wasted time and unpredictable results. A great prompt gives Devin everything it needs to succeed without ambiguity.

An effective prompt has four key parts:

Context: Briefly explain what the codebase does and any relevant background information
Task: Describe the specific action you want Devin to take in clear, simple terms
Constraints: List any requirements, standards, or limitations it must follow
Success criteria: Define exactly what “done” looks like so you can verify the result

For example, instead of a vague prompt like “Fix the login bug,” a much better prompt would be: “Fix the login bug where users see a blank screen after entering correct credentials. The issue is in the auth.js file. Add error handling and display a user-friendly message if the API call fails.”

💡 Pro Tip: Make it easy for anyone to assign work to Devin correctly by creating and storing prompt templates in ClickUp Docs and linking them directly to tasks.

Review Devin’s plan and reasoning

Before Devin starts coding, it presents you with its plan. This is a critical checkpoint for human oversight. It’s your opportunity to catch any misunderstandings before they turn into bad code.

When reviewing the plan, look for logical steps, correct file identification, and an approach that aligns with your team’s standards. If something looks off, you can provide feedback and ask Devin to adjust its plan. The reasoning trace explains why it’s making certain decisions, giving you valuable insight into its process.

💡 Pro Tip: Maintain a clear audit trail for all AI-assisted work by documenting plan reviews in ClickUp Task Comments. This creates a historical record of all feedback and approvals, which is invaluable for quality control and debugging later.

Approve the pull request

Once Devin completes the work, it will open a pull request on GitHub containing the code changes, any new tests it wrote, and documentation. At this stage, your standard code review process takes over. AI-generated code should be scrutinized just as carefully as human-written code.

During the review, check for:

Code quality: Does the code follow your team’s style guides and best practices?
Test coverage: Did Devin add or update tests to validate its changes?
Documentation: Is the pull request description clear, and are there comments where needed?

Once you’re satisfied, you can approve and merge the PR. This is where having an integrated system pays off.

💡 Pro Tip: Keep your project board perfectly in sync without manual effort by automatically updating task statuses to ‘Done’ when you merge a pull request using the ClickUp GitHub integration.

Best Practices for Using Devin AI in Your Startup Workflow

Just giving your team access to a powerful AI tool without a playbook can lead to chaos. You might end up with buggy code merged into production, or developers wasting time cleaning up the AI’s mistakes. To avoid this, you need to establish clear best practices for how your team works with Devin. ✨

Start small: Begin with low-risk, non-critical tasks to help your team learn Devin’s strengths and how to write effective prompts
Define clear acceptance criteria: Devin performs best when there are specific, measurable requirements for what “done” means
Maintain human oversight: Always have a human developer review and approve every pull request before it’s merged
Use branch protection: Configure your GitHub repositories to require approvals on protected branches, preventing Devin from merging code directly
Track AI work separately: Differentiate between tasks assigned to Devin and those assigned to human developers for better reporting and velocity tracking
Document tribal knowledge: Keep your technical documentation up-to-date so Devin can learn your specific codebase patterns and standards
Set guardrails: Clearly define which parts of the codebase Devin is allowed to modify and which are off-limits

Easily filter and create reports, ensure senior developer sign-off on every AI-generated PR, and keep all your technical documentation and prompt templates in one place by operationalizing your workflow in ClickUp.

💡 Pro Tip: Visualize your team’s progress and compare AI vs. human development velocity to identify bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement with ClickUp Dashboards.

ClickUp Dashboards view showing an AI project update and reporting widgets for tracking progress — ClickUp Dashboards with AI-powered updates

📚 Also Read: How ClickUp Uses Custom Dashboards for Real-Time Visibility

Limitations of Using Devin AI

While Devin is a powerful tool, it’s not a magic bullet. Understanding its limitations is key to setting realistic expectations and avoiding frustration. Presenting these limitations honestly helps your team use the tool effectively.

Complex architectural decisions: Devin is great at following existing patterns, but it can’t make high-level design choices or architect a new system from scratch
Ambiguous requirements: Vague or incomplete prompts will lead to unpredictable and often incorrect results
Novel problem-solving: Devin works best with tasks that are similar to problems it has seen before. It struggles with truly novel challenges that require creative, out-of-the-box thinking
Security-critical code: You should not delegate tasks related to authentication, encryption, or sensitive data handling to an AI
Cross-system debugging: Diagnosing issues that span multiple microservices or infrastructure components is often too complex for Devin to handle alone
Context window limits: For very large and complex codebases, Devin may not be able to hold all the necessary context to perform a task correctly

These limitations make having a strong project management process even more critical. You need a system that ensures clear task definitions, provides structured templates, and enforces human oversight at every key checkpoint.

📚 Also Read: How to Use Hugging Face for AI Deployment

Alternative to Devin AI for Startup Development

While Devin is excellent at code generation, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. Startups need a comprehensive system to manage, track, and coordinate all development work—whether it’s done by a human or an AI.

Juggling Devin, GitHub, Slack, and a separate project management tool creates the exact kind of tool sprawl and AI sprawl—the unplanned proliferation of disconnected AI tools with no oversight or strategy, leading to wasted money and duplicated effort—that slows teams down.

Centralize your project management, documents, and communication in one place with ClickUp to eliminate this problem.

*Keep code-related notes, tasks, and chats at hand with ClickUp’s AI Enterprise Search*

ClickUp’s converged AI workspace—a single, secure platform where projects, documents, conversations, and contextual AI intelligence work together seamlessly—brings everything together, with ClickUp Brain providing intelligence across your entire workspace.

ClickUp Brain generating AI-created tasks with detailed descriptions and structured fields

AI-powered task creation: Generate detailed task descriptions, subtasks, and acceptance criteria from a simple prompt using ClickUp Brain
Knowledge management: Instantly surface the context you need by searching across all your ClickUp Docs, tasks, and comments with ClickUp Brain
Automation assistance: Save time by setting up complex routing and status update rules using natural language in ClickUp

ClickUp's Codegen Agent brings AI coding capabilities directly into your project management hub.

Empower even non-technical team members to execute development tasks with deep project understanding—ClickUp’s Codegen Agent brings AI coding capabilities directly into your project management hub.

Customer support: Turn support tickets into real fixes by allowing agents to generate code changes based on reported issues
Product managers: Transform product requirement documents (PRDs) into working prototypes without waiting for engineering cycles
Engineering and QA: Automate the creation of test suites directly from requirements, helping your team ship faster and with more confidence

Learn more about automating your development workflows with ClickUp:

Devin AI Alternatives for Startup Teams

Devin is a powerful autonomous agent, but it’s not the only AI coding tool on the market. The right choice for your startup depends on whether you need a tool to assist your developers or one to delegate tasks to.

Here’s a quick comparison of some popular tools for coding.

Tool	Best For	Key Capability	Consideration
GitHub Copilot	In-editor code completion	Real-time suggestions while typing	Requires a human to drive all development
Cursor	AI-first code editing	Chat-based code generation in the IDE	Still requires constant developer oversight
Replit Agent	Quick prototypes	Browser-based development environment	Limited for complex production applications
Claude/ChatGPT	Code explanation and snippets	Conversational code assistance	No direct integration with your codebase
Devin AI	Autonomous task completion	End-to-end development with PR output	Requires clear, well-defined task definitions

Most alternatives are code assistants, designed to augment a developer’s workflow rather than work independently. Devin stands out for its ability to handle entire tasks autonomously. Regardless of which tool you choose, you’ll still need a robust project management platform to track and coordinate all the work.

💡ClickUp Brain works as your coding partner within ClickUp.

ClickUp Brain interface showing AI-powered support for summarizing and organizing information

Manage Your Startup Development Workflows With ClickUp

Devin AI offers a powerful way for startups to multiply their engineering output, but it’s most effective when used for well-defined, repeatable coding tasks with clear acceptance criteria. Human oversight is not just a suggestion; it’s essential. AI-generated code requires the same level of review rigor as human-written code. By starting with small, low-risk tasks, your team can build the muscle for effective prompting and review workflows. 🤩

Managing an AI-assisted workflow requires visibility, coordination, and clear processes. Build the project management foundation for your AI-powered startup with ClickUp. Get started for free with ClickUp and bring all your development work—human and AI-generated—into one unified workspace.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Devin AI build a full startup MVP?

Devin can build functional MVPs for web applications, internal tools, and API integrations when given clear specifications. However, complex products with novel architectures still benefit from human developer involvement in planning and oversight.

Is Devin AI suitable for non-technical founders?

Devin requires technical context to perform well, as you’ll need to provide clear prompts and understand pull requests. Non-technical founders can use Devin effectively by partnering with a technical advisor to handle the code review and oversight.

How much human oversight does Devin AI require?

Devin shows its reasoning and pauses for approval at key checkpoints, and all pull requests should be reviewed before merging. You should plan for a senior developer to review Devin’s output for each task assigned.

How much does Devin AI cost for a startup team?

Devin uses a session-based pricing model where tasks consume compute time, with different plan tiers available. You should contact Cognition AI directly for current pricing details that fit your startup’s expected usage.

Can Devin AI replace developers on a startup team?

Devin augments developer capacity by handling repetitive tasks, but it doesn’t replace human developers who make architectural decisions and handle complex problem-solving. Think of Devin as a force multiplier for your existing team.

What tasks should startups not delegate to Devin AI?

Avoid delegating security-critical code, complex architectural decisions, and novel problems that require creative problem-solving. Devin excels at well-defined, repeatable tasks with documented patterns and clear acceptance criteria.