Devin Desktop Manager

An unofficial, user-local installer and update manager for the official stable Devin Desktop Linux bundle. It downloads directly from Cognition's official release channel, verifies the published SHA-256 digest and package invariants, and provides transactional updates and rollback without AUR packaging or sudo.

This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Cognition. It does not redistribute Devin Desktop or include an upstream .deb; every application install is downloaded directly from the official release host.

Compatibility

• glibc-based Linux x86_64 (amd64)
• Bash 4.4 or newer
• GNU Make 4.3 behavior or newer
• a local same-device filesystem with atomic rename and advisory locking
• an XDG-compatible desktop; KDE integration is optional
• unprivileged user namespaces for Electron sandboxing

See Installation for capability-based dependencies. The project reports missing or incompatible tools but never assumes a package manager or installs system packages. ARM64, macOS, Windows, musl-only distributions, system-wide installs, and distribution packages are outside the v0.1 scope.

Install

git clone https://github.com/newbpydev/devin-desktop-manager.git
cd devin-desktop-manager
make install
make doctor

make install first atomically copies the manager to ~/.local/bin/devin-desktop-manager, then installs the current official stable application. Use make install-manager if you only want the manager command and do not want to download Devin Desktop yet.

Ensure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH, then the manager can also be called directly:

devin-desktop-manager --version
devin-desktop-manager status

Normal workflow

make check
make update
make doctor

check reads the official manifest without creating installation state. update downloads, validates, stages, and transactionally activates a release. One previous release is retained:

make rollback

The manager registers its desktop entries without replacing an unrelated default application. To explicitly make Devin the default for its URL schemes and workspace files:

make set-defaults

Commands

Command	Purpose
make install	Install the manager and current official stable app
make install-manager	Copy only the manager command
make status	Show current and previous releases
make check	Check the stable manifest without mutation
make update	Validate and transactionally activate stable
make rollback	Swap current and previous releases
make set-defaults	Explicitly claim Devin URL/workspace defaults
make doctor	Validate the app, sandbox, state, and integration
make uninstall	Interactively remove manager-owned files
make verify	Run the complete offline lint and test gate
make coverage	Run the suite with the enforced 84% line-coverage ratchet

make link-dev is only for contributors; public installs are independent copies and do not break when the clone is moved or deleted.

The target classes are: bootstrap discovery (help); checkout-manager reads and lifecycle mutations; installed-application queries and launch; installer-local publication (install-manager, link-dev, and link); development gates (lint, test, verify, and coverage); exact-root release engineering (package and release-check); and bounded generated-output cleanup (clean). Each class checks only the capabilities it needs before its first mutation or external effect.

Normal results use status 0. Direct runtime, preflight, busy, or recoverable operation failures use status 1; direct helper usage errors use status 2; GNU Make reports only zero or nonzero. Follow the generic remediation in stderr, correct the named capability or path, and retry the same command. Never delete a lock file to bypass a busy diagnostic.

Security and ownership

The manager:

• accepts only the official HTTPS manifest and artifact hosts;
• restricts redirects to HTTPS and bounds retries, redirects, and timeouts;
• checks SHA-256, Debian package identity, architecture, metadata, paths, and escaping archive links before activation;
• validates the extracted application and its reported build;
• never adds Electron's insecure --no-sandbox option;
• records a durable transaction journal before changing release links, integration files, MIME defaults, or state, and recovers it after interruption;
• records committed uninstall cleanup separately, so the next mutation can safely remove a staged release tree left by interruption;
• marks manager roots and releases with versioned ownership metadata, refusing to overwrite or recursively remove paths it cannot prove it owns.

Releases live under ~/.local/opt/devin-desktop. Manager state is stored with mode 0600 at ${XDG_STATE_HOME:-~/.local/state}/devin-desktop-manager/state.json. Desktop, icon, and MIME files use manager-specific names under ${XDG_DATA_HOME:-~/.local/share}. A hidden, manager-owned devin-desktop.desktop compatibility entry matches the application's runtime identity so desktop shells can persist pinned launchers without adding a duplicate application-menu entry.

Recognized markerless installations are migrated automatically only after all profile-specific ownership evidence validates. This includes the public 0.1.0 layouts and the complete initial-manager layout with exact legacy desktop semantics, release-matching assets, and traceable MIME associations. doctor reports that exact state as a recoverable Legacy Installation. A near-miss, modern manager default without state, modified file, or untraceable association is left unchanged; inspect or move aside the reported conflict. Do not add a marker by hand or delete a lock to force adoption.

If an installed 0.1.0 manager refuses this legacy profile, first obtain the verified 0.1.1 source, then install the fixed manager before updating the app:

make install-manager
devin-desktop-manager --version
make update
make doctor

The old manager's update command updates Devin Desktop, not the manager binary, so it cannot bootstrap this compatibility fix by itself.

The separate official devin CLI and Devin/Windsurf user configuration are outside this project's ownership and are preserved by uninstall.

For vulnerability reporting and the supported-version policy, read SECURITY.md. For usage help, read SUPPORT.md.

Uninstall

make uninstall

Uninstall restores a previous MIME default only when the manager is still the current default. Defaults or managed-looking files changed by the user are preserved. For automation, use make uninstall-yes.

Development

bundle install
make verify
bundle exec make coverage
make package

Tests use deterministic miniature Debian-package fixtures and never download Devin Desktop. The separate scheduled canary checks the live official manifest. The canonical Ubuntu CI job owns lint and the single coverage/full-suite run; Debian-family, Fedora, and minimum Bash 4.4/GNU Make 4.3 lanes run only the focused offline portability smoke set. See CONTRIBUTING.md for locked Bashcov setup and the TDD workflow, and docs/RELEASING.md for the release process.

License

The manager source is available under the MIT License. Devin Desktop is third-party software governed by its upstream terms.