Cognition vs GitHub Copilot (2026)

Native integrations cover GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Linear, PagerDuty and Pylon, and MCP connects Devin to hundreds of external tools and data sources, including monitoring, databases and documentation systems.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai/integrations/overviewread 2026-10-28

The cloud agent works natively across GitHub issues, pull requests and Actions, takes tasks from Slack, Teams, Jira, Linear and Azure Boards, and reaches further tools and data through MCP servers, with the GitHub and Playwright MCP servers on by default and enterprise policy restricting MCP servers.

Sourcedocs.github.com about-coding-agent and concepts/agents/enterprise-managementread 2026-09-29

Dynamic workflows are Python scripts Devin writes and runs to orchestrate a team of Devin agents, deciding which agents run in what order, fanning items through stages in parallel on separate VMs and passing structured results from one stage to the next. Devin also delegates large tasks to managed Devins, each in its own VM.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai/work-with-devin/dynamic-workflows and advanced-capabilitiesread 2026-10-28

The cloud agent researches, plans and changes code on a branch in its own environment, custom agents configured with tailored prompts, tools and context handle specialized tasks at enterprise, organization and repository level, and third party coding agents (Claude, Codex) run alongside it under the same protections.

Sourcedocs.github.com about-coding-agent and concepts/agents/enterprise-managementread 2026-09-29

Automations fire on Slack, GitHub, GitLab, Linear, Jira, Pylon, PagerDuty, schedule and webhook events, so once a trigger is defined Devin handles each event as it arrives without anyone tagging it. Scheduled sessions add recurring work, and Devin Oncall picks up alerts, bugs and incidents to investigate, fix or mitigate.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai/product-guides/automations and devin-oncallread 2026-10-28

An automation runs the cloud agent on a schedule or in response to events such as an issue being opened, with no person starting it; beyond that the agent is assigned issues, answers @copilot mentions in pull requests and takes tasks from Slack, Teams, Jira, Linear, Azure Boards, the agents panel and VS Code.

Sourcedocs.github.com about-coding-agentread 2026-09-29

Connected repositories are indexed from the DeepWiki settings page into wikis with architecture diagrams, source links and summaries, kept current and searchable, and Ask Devin uses them with code search to find context in the customer's code.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai/work-with-devin/deepwiki and onboard-devin/index-reporead 2026-10-28

Each repository gets a semantic code search index that is kept current automatically, typically updated within seconds of a new conversation, and used by Copilot Chat on GitHub and in VS Code and by the cloud agent; MCP extends grounding to outside data and content exclusions bound what may be read.

Sourcedocs.github.com concepts/context/repository-indexingread 2026-09-29

Devin Memory saves each user's preferences, corrections, decisions and lessons about their repos as one line notes in a personal memory drive, a Git repository of Markdown files that every new session loads. Each note links back to the session that taught it. Dreaming, a background session about once a day, consolidates overlapping notes and removes stale ones no session has used.

Users browse their memory under Customize and can tell Devin to forget a note or turn personal memory off, and admins set it on or off for an organization or the whole enterprise. Knowledge adds shared instructions that users approve, scoped from one repository up to the enterprise.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai/product-guides/memory and knowledgeread 2026-10-28

Copilot Memory stores repository facts and user preferences that Copilot writes from users' work, scoped to the repository or the user, validated against the current branch before use, deleted after 28 days unused, and reviewable and deletable by repository owners and by organization or enterprise admins; the cloud agent, code review, the CLI and agentic autofix use it. Copilot Memory is in public preview on all paid plans.

Sourcedocs.github.com concepts/agents/copilot-memoryread 2026-09-29

Local Hands lets a cloud Devin session run commands and edit files on the user's own computer only with the user's approval for each tool call. After a pull request Devin offers to test the app and waits for a click unless pre approved testing is turned on. Knowledge Devin proposes is saved only after a user edits and approves it, AI guardrails screen messages and PR comments and can block them before Devin acts, security profiles apply reusable restrictions to network, MCP and git access, and Devin Review runs only as often as the customer sets.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai local-hands, testing-and-recordings, knowledge, ai-guardrails and security-profilesread 2026-10-28

The cloud agent works on a branch and a person reviews the diff, iterates and decides when to create the pull request, which then passes GitHub's own branch protection and review controls; managed settings files control agent command authorization across Copilot clients, and enterprise policy decides where the agent may run at all.

Sourcedocs.github.com about-coding-agent and concepts/agents/enterprise-managementread 2026-09-29

Independent auditors assess Cognition's security program at least annually under SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001, and data is protected with TLS 1.2 or higher in transit and AES-256 at rest. Enterprise adds SAML and OIDC SSO, SCIM 2.0 provisioning, IdP group mapping, IP access lists and custom roles for fine grained RBAC.

Sourcecognition.com/legal/security, docs.devin.ai custom-roles, scim and devin.ai/pricingread 2026-10-28

Enterprises set four agent policy states, including enabled for dynamic groups of organizations, manage custom agents at enterprise level through AI Controls or REST endpoints, restrict MCP servers and control plugin installs through managed settings. GitHub Copilot Business and Enterprise are covered by SOC 2 Type II reports available on the GitHub Enterprise Trust Center.

Sourcedocs.github.com concepts/agents/enterprise-management and github.blog/changelogread 2026-09-29

The session Progress tab unifies shell commands with outputs, code edits and browser activity, and users can jump to any point in the command history and open individual steps after the fact. Session Insights adds a timeline of key events and knowledge usage for completed sessions, guardrail events land in audit logs with a session link, and the Devin MCP server and API expose session events for search.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai session tools, session insights, ai-guardrails and devin-mcpread 2026-10-28

The enterprise audit log records agent actions such as pull_request.create with actor_is_agent, the agent_session_id and the initiating user, filterable with actor:Copilot over 180 days and streamable to external destinations (public preview), and AI Controls lists and filters agent sessions across the enterprise. The audit log does not include client session data, so prompts sent locally are not captured and a custom hook is needed to log CLI events.

Sourcedocs.github.com agentic-audit-log-events and concepts/agents/enterprise-managementread 2026-09-29

Outposts, generally available on Pro, Max and Teams, run Devin sessions inside infrastructure the customer controls (its own VMs, containers, Kubernetes clusters or on premises machines), so command execution, file edits and repository access stay on customer machines while inference and planning stay in Devin's cloud. Enterprise also offers a Cognition hosted single tenant VPC reached over PrivateLink, and federal customers can run Devin Desktop and the CLI fully air gapped against their own model endpoints.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai/cloud/outposts/overview, enterprise/deployment/overview and federal/air-gapped/overviewread 2026-10-28

Copilot with data residency is offered in the United States and the European Union: requests route to model endpoints in the enterprise's region, code, prompts and responses stay in region during inference, and Copilot logs and telemetry are stored in region.

Sourcedocs.github.com github-copilot-with-data-residencyread 2026-09-29

Cognition publishes the Devin official marketplace of plugins, mostly one per integration such as Linear, Notion, Datadog or Snowflake, each bundling skills and optionally rules, hooks, MCP servers and subagents, which administrators install or require for an organization. Playbooks add reusable prompt libraries, and Skills are SKILL.md procedures committed to a repository that every session follows.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai/product-guides/plugins and skillsread 2026-10-28

Copilot ships several agents that teams can adopt one at a time, the cloud agent, Copilot code review, agentic autofix and the Copilot CLI, and third party coding agents from Anthropic and OpenAI (Claude, Codex) can be used alongside it in public preview. Custom agents, skills and hooks let teams add their own.

Sourcedocs.github.com concepts/agents/copilot-memory, about-coding-agent and concepts/agents/enterprise-managementread 2026-09-29

Users pick the model from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Cognition models, including the SWE-2 coding model, plus open models such as DeepSeek, Kimi and GLM, with a --model flag, a /model command or a config default, and Enterprise teams restrict which models are available in Team Settings. Adaptive routes each task to a model automatically, and Fusion pairs a frontier lead model with a lower cost sidekick in Devin Desktop and the CLI.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai/cli/models, adaptive and fusionread 2026-10-28

Paid users select among models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Moonshot AI and Microsoft, with an optional one million token context, or use auto model selection, and Business and Enterprise admins decide by policy which models are enabled; Free and Student plans get auto selection only.

Sourcedocs.github.com reference/ai-models/supported-modelsread 2026-09-29

The Devin API is documented across more than 300 reference pages, with an Outposts API and CLI reference and a CLI plugin format, giving programmatic control of sessions and the platform. The official Devin MCP server at mcp.devin.ai/mcp authenticates with a Devin API key and exposes tools that create, search and steer sessions, manage playbooks, knowledge and schedules, and list integrations.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai llms.txt (API documentation) and work-with-devin/devin-mcpread 2026-10-28

The Copilot SDK exposes the agent loop, custom agents and cloud and remote sessions with server to server tokens, and REST endpoints manage custom agents at enterprise level, beside MCP and the CLI.

Sourcedocs.github.com get-started/features and concepts/agents/enterprise-managementread 2026-09-29

After a pull request, Devin can enter a testing mode that plans one end to end flow, runs it in the desktop and sends a screen recording as proof, and Devin Review checks pull requests. Session Insights reviews a completed session with feedback and an improved prompt. These check the agent's output or one session after the fact. No harness scores the agent's behavior across runs, and FrontierCode is Cognition's own published benchmark.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai testing-and-recordings, session-insights and devin-reviewread 2026-10-28

The cloud agent runs the project's tests, code review checks the customer's changes, admins can pilot a feature or model with a group of users, and agent sessions support troubleshooting. Those check the customer's code or trial adoption, and no tools for testing or scoring the agent's own behavior are described.

Sourcedocs.github.com get-started/features and about-coding-agentread 2026-09-29

Each session includes an interactive browser Devin operates for testing and visual verification alongside its shell and IDE, and a full desktop for Computer Use with screenshots and recordings. In testing mode Devin runs the app, clicks through one end to end flow in the browser and records the screen.

Sourcedocs.devin.ai devin-session-tools, computer-use and testing-and-recordingsread 2026-10-28

The Playwright MCP server is enabled by default for the cloud agent, so the agent drives a browser in its own environment to open, interact with and screenshot the web app it is building, with the browser supplied by GitHub. The browser steps themselves are not described in detail.

Sourcedocs.github.com about-coding-agentread 2026-09-29