Where to Find 18F's Guides and Resources Now That the Team Is Gone

Updated

18F's guides and resources are still available through 18f.org, which states that "our work belongs to the public" and that it has saved materials including the de-risking guide and engineering guide. The site presents these as public property, so you can access them even though 18F itself was dismantled by DOGE on March 1, 2025. Use this route if you want the original 18F methodology and documentation rather than a third-party summary.

What 18F Was and What It Left Behind

18F was a team of non-partisan civil servants that, for over 11 years, worked to make government technology work better. Its stated work fell into three areas:

  • Modernizing software development processes
  • Improving public-facing services such as websites and applications
  • Digitizing and streamlining internal systems

That work generated practical documentation — the de-risking guide and engineering guide are the two the site explicitly names as saved. The site frames all of it as belonging to the public, which is why the materials remain accessible after the team's dissolution.

How to Access the Guides

The site's "Resources from 18F" section is the entry point. The page describes the saved materials and provides a "Get the guides" path. The general flow:

  1. Go to 18f.org.
  2. Find the "Resources from 18F" section.
  3. Follow the "Get the guides" link to reach the saved de-risking guide, engineering guide, and other materials.

The expected result is access to the original 18F documentation. The page does not specify file formats, hosting locations, or whether any materials require registration, so treat those details as unconfirmed until you reach the guides themselves.

What Else the Site Documents

Beyond the guides, the site is a record of what 18F did and where its work was interrupted. The "Interrupted projects" section lists engagements that stopped when the team was dismantled, including:

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

Each entry has a "Read more" link, so the site functions as a project index as well as a guide repository. If you are looking for documentation tied to a specific agency engagement, start from the matching project entry.

Current Status and Context

18F was dismantled by DOGE on March 1, 2025, and the site states that the team is taking legal action, with a "latest statement" available on the page. This matters for anyone citing 18F's work: the organization no longer operates, so the site is a static archive rather than an active support channel. The site also includes a testimonial from Alex Palmer, the FEC's Chief Information Officer, describing how 18F helped the IT team and business owners engage in agile development and changed the agency's methodology — useful context if you want to understand the intended use of the guides.

Practical Notes

  • The de-risking guide and engineering guide are the named saved resources; other documentation "and more" is referenced but not itemized on the page.
  • No pricing or login requirements are stated on the page, so do not assume the guides are free of access conditions until you reach them.
  • For project-specific material, use the "Interrupted projects" list and its "Read more" links rather than searching the site broadly.