18F Blog

Transparency in coding makes code more secure. Open source development is development in the light, sometimes a harsh light, that shows every blemish. At 18F we strongly believe this improves the rapidity of our coding and the quality and security of the code.

Open source your code from day one. Don't wait for a milestone, don't wait for it to be stable — do it from the first commit.

At 18F, we place a premium on developing digital tools and services in the open. This means contributing our source code back to the community, actively repurposing our code across projects, and contributing back to the open source tools we use. For a variety of reasons, we believe that doing so improves the final product we create.

A growing trend both inside government and outside is to have a simple welcoming page for outside developers who may be interested in your team’s efforts. This material is often located at website.gov/developer and points visitors to technical material that developers may be interested in, especially APIs. Collecting technical documentation in one place facilitates the developer experience, ensuring that they can find and begin using APIs with as little friction as possible.

Midas is an online platform that brings to life the vision of an Innovation Toolkit for government. It's a marketplace of skill building opportunities which matches people to projects that they're passionate about. You can think of it as “Kickstarter for people's time.”