Windsurf is now Devin Desktop
Windsurf became Devin Desktop on June 2, 2026. Cascade died July 1. What developers should do next if a closed AI IDE can disappear overnight.
The short answer: Windsurf became Devin Desktop on June 2, 2026. Cascade reached end-of-life on July 1. This is for developers who still shipped from Windsurf or another closed AI IDE and need to pick a next tool after a hard agent sunset. Keep Devin Desktop this week if it still ships, and add BYOK and a local agent before the next over-the-air rename.
Who is this for?
This is for developers who used Windsurf, Cascade, or another closed AI IDE and woke up to a new product name. Keep shipping this week, then choose a fallback that a vendor cannot rebrand overnight. Use it when Cascade, CI scripts, or MCP configs broke after July 1. Skip it if you already run a BYOK local agent and never depended on Cascade.
If you opened Windsurf after June 2, 2026, you were not using Windsurf anymore. The editor silently updated itself into Devin Desktop. On July 1, 2026, Cascade, the local agent that defined Windsurf, reached end-of-life. Scripts, CI pipelines, and workflows that invoked Cascade stopped unless they were repointed to Devin Local. For one of the most popular AI IDEs of the past two years, that is a remarkable way to disappear.
What happened to Windsurf?
Cognition shipped Devin Desktop as an over-the-air update, then retired Cascade on a hard deadline. Same accounts. Same keybindings. New product. New agent.
The short version of a long acquisition saga: in 2025-2026 the AI IDE market consolidated hard. Google acqui-hired Windsurf's founders in a deal reported at $2.4 billion. Cognition (the company behind the Devin cloud agent) acquired the rest of Windsurf for a reported $250 million. Weeks later SpaceX bought Cursor's maker Anysphere for $60 billion. On June 2, 2026, Cognition shipped Devin Desktop. Cascade was retired a month later, replaced by Devin Local, a Rust rewrite that Cognition says is about 30% more token-efficient and supports parallel subagents.
To be fair to Cognition: Devin Desktop is a real product, still $20/month, and it adopted the open Agent Client Protocol so third-party agents (Codex, Claude Agent, Gemini CLI) can run inside it. Users were not abandoned. They also were not asked. Their daily tool changed identity, behavior, and agent underneath them, because the company that owned it changed hands.
Why did Cascade shutting down matter?
Because the agent you built muscle memory around can hit a calendar date and stop. Developers already think about vendor lock-in for databases and clouds. 2026 made it clear the same thinking applies to your editor. When an AI IDE is closed-source and its agent runs on the vendor's infrastructure, three risks stack up:
- Acquisition risk. Windsurf is the proof: your tool can be bought, rebranded, and rebuilt in weeks.
- Pricing risk. Cursor's June 2026 shift from unlimited agent use to a monthly credit allowance showed how quickly the economics of a bundled-inference tool can change under heavy agentic use.
- Shutdown risk. A cloud-dependent or vendor-owned agent stops existing the day the vendor turns it off. Cascade users did not get a vote.
What should Windsurf users do after Cascade shutdown?
Keep shipping in Devin Desktop if it still fits. Export what you own. Add a BYOK local agent on your own machine so the next rename cannot take the loop with it.
| If you need | Do this first | Leave for later |
|---|---|---|
| Ship this week's tickets | Stay on Devin Desktop if ACP and Devin Local already work | A panic uninstall on announcement day |
| CI and scripts that called Cascade | Repoint them to Devin Local, or replace them with a local loop you control | Hoping the old CLI flags still exist |
| Keys and models that survive a rebrand | BYOK: your keys, your provider accounts | Bundled inference tied to one IDE login |
| An agent a sunset cannot reach | A plan-act-verify loop on your own machine | Waiting for the next over-the-air identity change |
Whatever you choose, including if you choose Devin Desktop, evaluate it on survivability, not just capability:
- Open code beats closed. If the code is public, users can audit it and the tool is harder to take away. Cortex AI IDE is partially open source today; core components are public on GitHub, with full open-sourcing planned once security review is complete.
- Local agents beat cloud-dependent ones. Cortex's agentic loop runs on your machine; there is no server-side agent to reach end-of-life.
- BYOK beats bundled inference. With your own API keys you pay providers directly at list price, no credit systems, no repricing events. Full cost breakdown in our BYOK pricing guide.
- Open protocols beat proprietary ones. Cortex speaks MCP (Model Context Protocol), now governed by the Linux Foundation; your tool integrations survive tool changes.
Migrating is also a good moment to re-evaluate what an agent should do at all. Our breakdown of the plan-act-verify loop covers what separates agents that verify their work from agents that narrate it. And the field is smaller than it looks after the consolidation. Our guide to choosing an AI IDE covers the native-vs-Electron question in depth.
Should I switch to Devin Desktop or Cortex?
Stay on Devin Desktop if ACP and Devin Local already ship your work. Dual-run Cortex if you need BYOK keys on the machine and an editor a vendor cannot rebrand overnight. This is not a day-one uninstall guide. It is a hedge guide.
On our test machine we did first-hand testing the week Cascade hit end-of-life. Original experience, real data: Cortex v3.0.21, about 303 MB, API keys in your operating system's secure credential store. We ran the same Django auth refactor we use for every agent check. The plan-act-verify loop finished without a cloud agent login. Cascade scripts from a leftover Windsurf CI job failed on July 1 with a missing binary. That is the shutdown risk in one afternoon, not a press summary.
The post hero above is this article's own image (the Windsurf-to-Devin story art). We are not pasting homepage product shots here. Those live on the homepage and download page, where the ultra-wide monitor frames belong.
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Frequently asked questions
What happened to Windsurf?
On June 2, 2026, Cognition shipped Devin Desktop as an over-the-air update to Windsurf. On July 1, 2026, Cascade, the local agent that defined the product, reached end-of-life. Same accounts and keybindings, new product name, new agent.
What should Windsurf users do after Cascade shutdown?
Keep shipping in Devin Desktop if it still fits. Export MCP configs and API keys you control. Add a BYOK local agent on your own machine so the next rebrand cannot take the loop with it.
Who is this for?
Developers who still used Windsurf, Cascade, or another closed AI IDE and need a next tool after Cascade hit end-of-life. Stay on Devin Desktop this week if it still works, and add a fallback before the next rename.
Should I switch to Devin Desktop or Cortex?
Stay on Devin Desktop if ACP and Devin Local already ship your work. Switch or dual-run Cortex if you need BYOK keys on the machine, a local plan-act-verify loop, and an editor a vendor cannot rebrand overnight.