Data
Data on GovFresh.
Thoughts
Every government needs a web bot policy
Build your bot policy now and work with your digital team or vendor to implement it.
By Luke Fretwell
Bot gov
Optimizing digital government for AI and other machines.
By Luke Fretwell
Government websites are dead. Long live government websites.
AI will expedite government services moving from aesthetic design to machine-readable data.
By Luke Fretwell
Using AI to build a personal government technology podcast
I created podcast-like overviews of FedRAMP, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, TechFAR and Zero Trust with Google NotebookLM's deep dive feature.
By Luke Fretwell
Analyzing U.S. federal and state government website metadata
How government-managed domains conform to basic metadata practices.
By Luke Fretwell
Metadata, Open Graph and government websites
Complete metadata can have a significant impact on how citizens experience government digital services.
By Luke Fretwell
How government can help build better AI
Beyond policy, proactive engagement and better data management will make government a good steward and partner in responsible artificial intelligence efforts.
By Luke Fretwell
Citizen DX: Government customer experience starts with data
Properly managing and delivering citizen data should be the U.S. government's first CX priority.
By Luke Fretwell
Civic hacking
The soul and grassroots foundation of democracy.
By Luke Fretwell
Government RSS
Every government website must have an RSS feed. This guarantees an open, universal standard for syndicating government information.
By Luke Fretwell
Podcast
California Alpha (Part 2)
Going Alpha.
#14
California Alpha (Part 1)
Setting an Alpha foundation with Angie Quirarte.
#11
Civic hacking with Carlos Moreno
A citizen journalist and civic technologist shares his experiences and lessons learned civic hacking.
#10
Demos
ca.gov
State of California UX Design and Web Development Manager Artem Khomishen gives a demo of ca.gov.
Watch
Data.gov metrics dashboard
Data.gov Product Manager Tim Lowden demos the new metrics dashboard.
Watch
Papers
California Alpha
How a short-term, experimental project scaled digital service innovation and impact across the State of California.
Briefs
Open data
A brief-ish explainer of open data.
Open source AI
A brief-ish explainer of open source artificial intelligence.
Open source software
A brief-ish explainer of open source software.
Direct message
Ryan Wold
Public servant
Jarah Meador
Director of Challenge.Gov + CitizenScience.Gov
Joe DiStefano
Resiliency planner, startup founder, SimCity aficionado
Research
OpenACR
GovFresh research notes on OpenACR Editor.
Declaration for the Future of the Internet
GovFresh research notes on the Declaration for the Future of the Internet.
Public AI
GovFresh research notes on public artificial intelligence.
Open Source AI Definition
GovFresh research notes on the Open Source Institute's Open Source AI Definition.
AI and the U.S. federal government
GovFresh research notes on artificial intelligence and the U.S. government.
Open innovation
GovFresh research notes on open innovation.
Open government
GovFresh research notes on open government.
Open data
GovFresh research notes on open data.
GDPR
GovFresh research notes on General Data Protection Regulation.
Signal
Coding a COVID-19 dashboard (with my 13 year-old son)
Adventures in father-son civic hacking.
January 11, 2022
Hacking the chief data officers playbook
Making it more accessible, and suggestions for the CDO Council.
January 14, 2022
Civic hacking for '100% .gov'
Re-imagining the government domain name registry experience.
January 21, 2022
Government open data in 2022
Once thriving, now barely surviving. Ideas on how we can breathe more life into it.
March 4, 2022
Father-son civic hacking: Open Data Day 2022
Kickstarting USA.GovFresh, beginning with Federal Register open data.
March 10, 2022
Civic hacking Congress (part 1)
Building congressional pages with the new Library of Congress Congress.gov API.
October 26, 2022
Civic hacking .gov domains
Building a simple .gov domain search tool with CISA open data.
October 29, 2022
Civic hacking the Federal Register
Building an executive branch agency list using the National Archives' Federal Register API.
October 31, 2022
Civic hacking NASA (astronomy picture of the day)
Building a space photo of the day page using NASA's astronomy picture of the day API.
November 3, 2022
Welcome to GovFresh Signal
Subscribe to the official GovFresh newsletter.
December 7, 2022
Retrospecting 2022
Building community, civic hacking with my son, pedigree and public interest technology.
December 15, 2022
Civic hacking CISA cybersecurity news
Building a cybersecurity news page using the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency RSS feeds.
December 30, 2022
Civic hacking FDA's National Drug Code Directory
Building a look-up of Food and Drug Administration approved medicines.
December 30, 2022
Civic hacking the National Park Service
Building a national parks directory with the NPS API.
December 30, 2022
Civic hacking National Geodetic Survey survey marks
Building a survey mark finder app.
December 30, 2022
Civic hacking USAJOBS
Re-imagining federal government job openings with the USAJOBS API.
December 31, 2022
Civic hacking CDC notifiable diseases
Building a map of weekly notifiable disease cases across the United States.
December 31, 2022
White House wants your input on open source software security
A 'civic opportunity to help shape the government’s thinking about open-source software security.'
August 18, 2023
Signal (2024.08.02)
What's on our radar.
August 2, 2024
Signal 2025.03.14
What's on our radar.
March 14, 2025
World CityCamp Day 2025
A global movement of community-focused events that foster civic collaboration and innovation
July 21, 2025
Books
Unit X
How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War
By Christopher Kirchhoff and Raj M. Shah
The Tech Coup
How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley
By Marietje Schaake
Read Write Own
Building the Next Era of the Internet
By Chris Dixon
Dignity in a Digital Age
Making Tech Work for All of Us
By Ro Khanna
A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide
A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide
By Cyd Harrell
Autocracy, Inc.
The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
By Anne Applebaum
Labs
USA.GovFresh
Re-imagining USA.gov.
ScanGov
Government digital experience monitor