---
title: "Extensibility Overview"
description: "Customize and extend Devin CLI with rules, skills, and MCP servers"
icon: "puzzle-piece"
---

Devin CLI is designed to be deeply customizable. You can shape how the agent behaves, what tools it has access to, and how it responds to events — all through configuration files in your project or home directory.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Rules & AGENTS.md" icon="scroll" href="/cli/extensibility/rules">
    Provide always-on context and instructions that guide the agent's behavior across every session.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Skills" icon="wand-magic-sparkles" href="/cli/extensibility/skills/overview">
    Create reusable prompts and workflows the agent can invoke as slash commands or use autonomously.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Plugins" icon="box" href="/cli/extensibility/plugins/overview">
    Install and share bundles of skills across projects.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Custom Subagents" icon="users" href="/cli/subagents#custom-subagents">
    Define specialized subagent profiles with their own system prompts, tools, and models.
  </Card>
  <Card title="MCP Servers" icon="server" href="/cli/extensibility/mcp/overview">
    Connect external tool servers to give the agent access to APIs, databases, and more.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Hooks" icon="rotate" href="/cli/extensibility/hooks/overview">
    Run shell commands or LLM prompts at key points in the agent's lifecycle to enforce policies and automate workflows.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

---

## How It All Fits Together

These features work at different layers:

- **Rules** shape the agent's personality and constraints — they're always active.
- **Skills** give the agent new capabilities it can invoke on demand.
- **Custom Subagents** define specialized worker profiles the agent can delegate tasks to.
- **MCP Servers** provide entirely new tools the agent can call.
- **Hooks** run shell commands or LLM prompts at lifecycle events (e.g., before a tool runs) to enforce policies or trigger workflows.

You can combine all of these in a single project. For example, you might have an `AGENTS.md` file with coding standards, a `review` skill for code review, an MCP server for your issue tracker, and hooks to block destructive commands.

---

## Where Configuration Lives

All project-level extensibility configuration lives in the `.devin/` directory at your project root:

```
my-project/
├── .devin/
│   ├── config.json          # Project config (MCP, permissions)
│   ├── config.local.json    # Personal overrides (gitignored)
│   ├── hooks.v1.json        # Lifecycle hooks (Claude Code compatible)
│   ├── skills/
│   │   └── review/
│   │       └── SKILL.md     # A custom skill
│   └── agents/
│       └── reviewer.md      # A custom subagent profile (reviewer/AGENT.md also works)
├── AGENTS.md                # Project rules
└── src/
```

User-level configuration lives in `~/.config/devin/` and applies to all projects. On Windows, this path is `%APPDATA%\devin\` instead.

<Tip>
Files with `.local.` in the name are automatically excluded from git, so you can have personal overrides without affecting your team.
</Tip>

---

## Importing From Other Tools

Devin CLI can read configuration from other AI coding tools you may already use:

| Source | What's Imported |
|--------|----------------|
| `AGENTS.md` / `AGENT.md` / `CLAUDE.md` | Rules (always-on context) |
| `.cursor/rules/*.md` / `.cursor/rules/*.mdc` | Rules |
| `.windsurf/rules/*.md` | Rules |
| `.claude/` directory | Commands, [custom subagents](/cli/subagents#custom-subagents), [hooks](/cli/extensibility/hooks/overview) |

This means you can start using Devin CLI without rewriting your existing configuration. Import is enabled by default and can be controlled in your config file:

```json
{
  "read_config_from": {
    "cursor": true,
    "windsurf": true,
    "claude": true
  }
}
```

Set any provider to `false` to disable importing from it.
