Frequently Asked Questions

CodeNOW NYC is a program that helps NYC nonprofits, government agencies, and community organizations plan and build custom software together. A civic idea is shaped into a plan on The Starting Line — through four phases, Ideation, Planning, Governance, and Handoff — and then handed off to the CodeNOW Platform to be built.

Organizations based in or serving New York City — including nonprofits, government agencies, and community groups — can bring project ideas. People join a project's team through its governance process once they are project members. You sign in with CodeNOW single sign-on, and you do not need to be located in NYC to take part.

Yes. Both The Starting Line and the CodeNOW Platform are free for organizations and volunteers. There are no subscription fees, no per-project charges, and no hidden costs.

CodeNOW is a governed software-delivery platform for shipping production software, where every action is auditable, stoppable, and reproducible. This program runs on that same platform, provided free to New York's civic-tech community on community-owned hardware. When a project finishes planning on The Starting Line, it is handed off to CodeNOW to be built and delivered. See codenow.com for CodeNOW's certifications and the organizations that use it.

Starting a project takes just a few minutes: set up your organization (or choose to work solo), click "Start New Project" from your dashboard, describe the problem you want to solve, use the whiteboard to brainstorm and refine your idea, then build your project plan and invite collaborators. For a detailed walkthrough, see the Getting Started guide.

After you submit your handoff, the project moves to CodeNOW, where the platform's tooling sets up the development workspace and delivery begins. You can follow provisioning progress live on the project's handoff page, which streams each setup step as it completes.

When a project is handed off, CodeNOW provisions a source-code repository for it on CodeNOW's own platform — you do not need to bring your own. During planning, the team roster collects each member's GitLab username so CodeNOW can grant repository access after handoff.

Your project's technology stack is decided during handoff, based on your requirements and the CodeNOW platform's supported templates. Rather than list languages here (the supported set changes over time), you record your technology choices in the handoff step, where they become part of the package a platform administrator reviews.

We do not sell your data or share it with third parties. Every project has a public front page that anyone can see, whether or not they are signed in. To go beyond the front page, you request access, and an admin or owner of the project organization approves the request. For the full picture, see Security & Privacy.

You can reach the support team through the Support page on The Starting Line, where you can open a request and track its status. You can also browse this Help center for self-service answers.