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Helping the Helpers

The Norwegian Red Cross has over 40,000 volunteers. Some of them are programmers. They see problems in the field — during rescue operations, while visiting the sick and lonely, while organising events — and they have the skills to build solutions.

But building an app on a laptop is not the same as getting it adopted by an organisation. Security review, infrastructure review, GDPR, login integration, documentation requirements — every step is a chance for a good idea to stall. Most volunteer-built software never makes it past the laptop.

This platform changes that.

Dev Templates gives volunteer developers a starting point that already follows Red Cross's rules. Same database, standards-based authentication (OpenID Connect — development uses Authentik, production uses Okta, swapping is a configuration change), same security baseline, same CI pipeline, same deployment shape as every other Red Cross app. When a volunteer builds on a template, the result is not a personal project — it is an app that Red Cross IT can adopt through an administrative process, not a technical one.

Read the story​

Eir's Walkthrough is an example of how we envision incorporating good ideas from the field into the organisation. It follows a volunteer developer from the moment she sees a problem on a mountain rescue mission through the moment her app is running on Red Cross infrastructure.

User Guide​

Templates​

There are three types of templates. Browse the full catalogue on the Templates page, or see the template docs for individual pages with architecture diagrams, file listings, and environment details.

App Templates — Working starting points for web applications. Each ships with application code, a Dockerfile, Kubernetes manifests, and a CI/CD pipeline. Available in multiple languages and frameworks. Installed inside the devcontainer with dev-template.

Stack Templates — Infrastructure components that app templates can depend on (databases, caches, message queues). Provisioned by UIS into the local Kubernetes cluster — the developer does not install these directly.

AI Workflow Templates — Development workflow overlays that set up structured AI-assisted development with plans, phases, and validation. Installed alongside an app template to add an investigation → plan → implement → validate cycle.

For contributors​

If you are building or maintaining templates, see the Contributors Guide for template metadata, README structure, and naming conventions.

If you are an AI developer working on this codebase, see the AI Developer Guide for the plan-based workflow, project setup, and scripts reference.