  The Deep Extragalactic VIsible Legacy Survey (DEVILS) is a large
spectroscopic campaign at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) aimed at
bridging the near and distant Universe by producing the highest completeness
survey of galaxies and groups at intermediate redshifts ($0.3<z<1.0$). Our
sample consists of $\sim$60,000 galaxies to Y$<$21.2mag, over $\sim$6deg$^{2}$
in three well-studied deep extragalactic fields (Cosmic Origins Survey field,
COSMOS, Extended Chandra Deep Field South, ECDFS and the X-ray Multi-Mirror
Mission Large-Scale Structure region, XMM-LSS - all Large Synoptic Survey
Telescope deep-drill fields). This paper presents the broad experimental design
of DEVILS. Our target sample has been selected from deep Visible and Infrared
Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) Y-band imaging (VISTA Deep Extragalactic
Observations, VIDEO and UltraVISTA), with photometry measured by ProFound.
Photometric star/galaxy separation is done on the basis of NIR colours, and has
been validated by visual inspection. To maximise our observing efficiency for
faint targets we employ a redshift feedback strategy, which continually updates
our target lists, feeding back the results from the previous night's
observations. We also present an overview of the initial spectroscopic
observations undertaken in late 2017 and early 2018.
