What Is 18F and What Did It Do?

Updated

18F was a team of non-partisan civil servants inside the U.S. government that worked for more than 11 years to make government technology work better. Its work covered three broad areas: modernizing software development processes, improving public-facing services like websites and applications, and digitizing and streamlining internal government systems. According to the organization's own site, 18F was dismantled by DOGE on March 1, 2025, and the team says it is taking legal action.

What 18F actually worked on

The site describes 18F's contribution in three plain categories:

  • Modernized software development processes — helping agencies change how they build software, including bringing IT teams and business owners into agile development.
  • Improved public-facing services — websites and applications that citizens interact with directly.
  • Digitized and streamlined internal systems — back-office workflows that agencies use to do their work.

A quote on the site from Alex Palmer, the FEC's Chief Information Officer, describes the effect of that engagement: 18F "came in and helped the IT team and business owners get involved in the agile development process. It changed our whole methodology."

Projects that were interrupted

The site lists a set of projects under the heading "Interrupted projects," which is the clearest picture of the range of 18F's work. The list includes:

Agency Project
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Weather.gov
Internal Revenue Service IRS Direct File
Department of the Treasury, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau TTB application modernization
FVAP.gov Federal Voting Assistance Program
Office of Refugee Resettlement In Care Case Management System for Unaccompanied Children
Maryland Department of Labor Maryland Family Leave and Medical Insurance
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Ninth Circuit website redesign
U.S. Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs
Election Assistance Commission Election Assistance Commission web strategy
Council on Environmental Quality Council on Environmental Quality
Permitting Council Permitting Council

The spread matters: 18F's work was not confined to one agency or one type of task. It ranged from a weather site used by the general public to an internal case-management system for unaccompanied children, and from federal agencies to a state labor department.

What happened to 18F

The site states plainly that 18F was dismantled by DOGE on March 1, 2025, and that the team is taking legal action, with a link to its latest statement. If you are trying to understand 18F's current status, that statement is the primary source to read rather than secondhand summaries.

Where the resources went

The site notes that 18F's work "belongs to the public" and that it has saved its de-risking guide, engineering guide, and other materials, which are available through a "Get the guides" link. For anyone who wants to apply 18F's methods — such as de-risking a large software procurement or setting up an engineering practice in a public-sector team — those guides are the practical starting point.

How to use this if you are researching 18F

  • If you want to know what 18F was: use the three-category description above and the project table as the summary.
  • If you want to know its status: read the site's statement on the March 1, 2025 dismantling and the legal action.
  • If you want to reuse its methods: start with the saved de-risking and engineering guides rather than trying to reconstruct them from news coverage.
  • If you are looking for a specific project: check the interrupted-projects list first; it names the agency and project for each entry, and each has a "Read more" link on the site.