CFPB development guidelines

A guide for the development team at the CFPB.

Standards and styles

“All code in any code-base should look like a single person typed it, no matter how many people contributed.”

– idiomatic.js

• API standards
• CSS & Less standards
• JavaScript standards
• Markup standards
• Python standards

Guides

• Start here – New to software development at the CFPB? Read this first.
• Accessibility
• Atomic Design
• Authoring, testing, and publishing npm modules
• Browser support
• Browser support exceptions: This document outlines the decision making process for requesting an exception to current browser support standards.
• Browser testing with Sauce Labs
• Building your project's front-end
• Code review guide
• Creating CommonJS modules
• Documenting your work
• Front-end testing
• Git and GitHub
• Installing and using Python
• Using pipx for command-line Python tools
• Patterns for git-secrets
• Publishing Python packages to PyPI
• Screen reader differences
• Unit testing Django and Wagtail
• Using npm modules in projects

Tools

• Open source project template
• Browser testing checklist
• ESLint file
• gitignore sample
• Pull request template

Design System

The Design System is our modular front end framework (formerly named Capital Framework).

• Design System docs

Our Core Values

• Service: We value that what we do is being of service to consumers, customers, and internal partners
• Mutual Respect: We respect and encourage diverse backgrounds, lifestyles, and personalities
• Communication: We strive to communicate our activities inside and outside of the team
• Openness: We and our work-products are open and available for anyone to see and improve
• Leadership: Everyone leads and everyone follows, setting an example for federal government
• Learning and Innovation: We seek to apply creative thinking to improve what we do all the time. We constantly seek ways to improve ourselves and our teams
• Willingness: We are willing to help each other with anything that is good for the team
• Excellence: We believe that excellence is defined by a commitment to and practice of constant learning and improvement

Our Front-end web development values

1. End goals of the user should be what drive the front-end design.
2. Pages, apps, and sites should be inclusive of all users.
3. We want to continue to use cutting-edge technologies and methods to build modern applications, but without compromising usability for all consumers.
4. Testing in supported browsers should be as painless as we can make it.
5. Websites should download quickly and not cost users on metered data connections much money.
6. Development workflows and standards are understood by all of us and easy to maintain.

Open source licensing info

1. TERMS
2. LICENSE
3. CFPB Source Code Policy