Devin Desktop's agent was still working.
Your Mac didn't care.

If macOS went to sleep mid-task, Devin Desktop's agent (the editor formerly known as Windsurf, rebranded by Cognition in June 2026) froze right where it was — it didn't fail, it just got paused along with your Mac. Here's why that happens, and how to stop it.

To keep your Mac awake while Devin Desktop runs: the free way is macOS's built-in caffeinate -i — run it in Terminal before you start, and stop it yourself when the run ends. The automatic way is AgentBarista (14-day free trial, then $19 one-time), which detects Devin working and lets your Mac sleep when it finishes.

The direct answer

Why your Mac sleeps while Devin Desktop's agent is still going

Devin Desktop's AI agent often spends most of a task waiting on a model response — which barely uses any CPU. macOS only looks at CPU and user input to decide whether to sleep, so an agent that's "thinking" hard but computing little looks idle to the OS. After your screen-sleep or system-sleep timer runs out, macOS suspends the Mac, and Devin Desktop's agent process is frozen along with everything else until you wake it back up.

The fix is to stop macOS from sleeping for as long as Devin Desktop's agent is actually running a task — then let it sleep normally again shortly after the agent goes quiet — within your grace window, 90 seconds by default. You can do that for free in two minutes, or with a tool that watches for real agent activity so you don't have to babysit it.

The free option

Free tools can keep your Mac awake too

If you only run Devin Desktop occasionally, you don't need to buy anything. Two solid free options:

  • The built-in caffeinate command. Open Terminal and run caffeinate -i before you kick off a long Devin Desktop task. It'll hold sleep off until you close the Terminal window or press Ctrl+C. Simple, free, already on your Mac.
  • Amphetamine (free, Mac App Store). Gives you a menu-bar toggle and basic process triggers, so you can set it to stay awake while specific apps are running.

Both are a fine choice if Devin Desktop runs for a few minutes here and there. The catch: neither one knows when the agent actually finished. You either turn it off yourself, or it keeps your Mac awake — and your battery draining — long after the task is done.

The purpose-built option — honest status

What AgentBarista does today for Devin Desktop

Straight answer: Devin Desktop is new enough (renamed from Windsurf in June 2026) that it isn't in AgentBarista's calibrated agent list yet — we verify each app's process name and on-screen text on a real Mac before we call it "supported," and we haven't finished that for the rebrand. Add it to your custom target-app list and AgentBarista's general CPU-activity detection will watch it today; the tuned, on-screen-text detection (the part that catches long silent "thinking" turns at 0% CPU) is calibration-in-progress.

Works today via CPU detection

Add Devin Desktop to your target-app list and AgentBarista keeps the Mac awake whenever it's burning real CPU — the same fallback every editor gets before it's individually tuned.

Calibrated support: in progress

We're verifying Devin Desktop's process name and on-screen agent-status text so silent "thinking" turns get caught too, not just active CPU. We ship new-agent support fast — see our changelog for when this lands.

Has a safety net regardless

A battery cutoff and an emergency restore mean it never gets permanently stuck keeping your Mac awake — true for every app AgentBarista watches, calibrated or not.

Devin Desktop (CPU fallback, tuning in progress) Claude Code Cursor Codex Gemini CLI Copilot CLI OpenCode Zed Antigravity Claude ChatGPT + more

It runs on your Mac. AgentBarista never opens your files. To tell a working agent from a finished one it looks at process command lines and CPU, at the names and modification times of your agents' session files, and — only if you grant macOS Accessibility permission — at the on-screen text of the agent apps you enable and of the terminals we support. Two of those can contain your own words: a command line includes any prompt you pass on it, and on-screen text includes whatever is visible in that window, your code included. Both are matched against status phrases on your Mac and discarded on the spot: never stored, never sent. Nothing about your work leaves your Mac — no file contents, no code, no prompts, no file names, no activity data. Your stats and settings stay on this Mac. The app contains no analytics or telemetry of any kind. Its one network call is license validation, sent to our payment provider, Lemon Squeezy: activating a license sends your license key and your Mac's name, and the routine check after that sends your license key and an anonymous instance id — nothing else.

Pricing

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More agents

Also running Claude Code, Codex CLI, or another agent?

Same Mac-goes-to-sleep problem, different tool. Each of these guides covers the fix for that agent specifically:

Keep Claude Code awake Keep Codex CLI awake Keep Cursor awake Keep Gemini CLI awake Keep Copilot CLI awake