SUMM

Windsurf is a dev tool company, and its flagship product is the Windsurf editor, powered by an agent called Cascade.
The Windsurf editor with Cascade was the first agentic IDE in the space, with many similar products following its launch.

Successful duos, like coding assistants and developers, work better together and complement each other.
Developers often struggle with coding agents due to error-prone or duplicated code.
Agents should be treated as teammates or friends, and it is the responsibility of tool builders like Windsurf to ensure agents understand developers.

In 2022, developers had to write all code themselves, relying on resources like Stack Overflow and Google.
Late 2022 to 2023 saw the introduction of co-pilots (e.g., ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot) which provided chat interfaces for simple Q&A and autocomplete. These required step-by-step, collaborative interaction.
By late 2024, "agents" emerged, offering autonomy, iterative operation, and the ability to perform larger scope tasks using tool and function calling.
Windsurf's "AI Flows," introduced in November, combine the collaborative power of chatbots with the autonomous and tool-calling capabilities of agents to create a unified developer experience.

Windsurf prioritizes "flow awareness," which involves comprehensive reasoning and understanding of implicit user intent.
Cascade tracks user actions, edits, commands, clipboard content, and recently edited files to build an understanding of the user's context and predict their next steps.
Windsurf utilizes a state-of-the-art context engine that combines multiple tools to deeply understand the user's codebase, leading to more accurate suggestions and reduced hallucinations.
Cascade is equipped with tools for multi-step, iterative tasks, including MCP servers and recently introduced "workflows" that allow users to define a set of steps for the agent to follow, bridging the gap between agent unpredictability and deterministic tasks.
Users can generate "rules" for Cascade (e.g., file-based rules, general behaviors) and Cascade can generate "memories" of user preferences and the codebase to avoid constant re-indexing.
Windsurf recently introduced the ability for multiple simultaneous Cascades to work in tandem, allowing for faster and more efficient task completion.

To maximize the development experience, engineers should follow a four-step process: Explore/Discover, Plan, Build, and Test.
Discover: Leverage Cascade to understand the codebase, scope tasks, and define the "definition of done" (DoD), using app-mentions for direct context.
Plan: Work collaboratively with Cascade by creating planning files with task checklists and outlining rules for the agent's behavior.
Build: Execute the plan with Cascade, editing files while ensuring the agent follows the planning document and answering its questions clearly. Tools like Windsurf tab (autocomplete) and simultaneous Cascades can be used.
Test: Generate, run, and fix tests with Cascade, leveraging workflows for automation. If the DoD is not met, ensure Cascade understands its errors to learn and improve for future tasks.
Developers should view themselves and Cascade as a single team or "peer programmer" working together, rather than separate entities where the developer delegates tasks and disengages.

Mastering Engineering Flow with Windsurf - Eashan Sinha, Windsurf