The Operating System for Modern Cities
Permits, 311, licensing, payments, records, tax and 102 more — one AI-native platform your city actually controls. Every permit, payment, violation and license lives on the same resident and the same parcel. Not a stack of vendors stitched together.
Independent Civic Kernel demo. The screenshots and example records shown here are illustrative, and named officials are fictional. The Greenville demo is not an official City of Greenville deployment.
See Civic Kernel in action
One platform, both sides of the counter —
the staff console your city runs on, and the self-service residents actually use.
1Permit queue — staff view
Staff review, approve and route every application from one queue, with status and SLA timers — and one click opens the applicant's full record across every module.
- For city staff
- Permits module
- SLA tracking
2311 service requests — resident view
Residents report potholes, streetlights, trash and more, then follow each request from submitted to resolved — all in one place.
- For residents
- 311 module
- Self-service
Start a design-partner pilot
We’re inviting a small number of cities in South Carolina and North Carolina. During the pilot, the platform, setup and import of records in your agreed pilot scope are provided at no charge, with every AI feature available. We activate the modules your city selects. Hosting, AI usage, and SMS and email notifications if your city uses them, are billed at cost. Full pilot terms →
New capability, live in the demo
Police & community trust
Service hub, incident reporting, ride-alongs, citizen review and community care.
Transit & paratransit
Routes and alerts, trip planning, rider tools, eligibility, scheduling and appeals.
Records & court
Public records with a requester cabinet and installments; pay a citation online.
Giving & documents
Online donations with numbered receipts; document versions, search and retention.
Maps & location
Parcel and zoning layers on the public map, with address resolution built in.
Each of these ships on the same core and the same record — see them on the demo tenant.
AI that works on your city's real data
Not a chatbot bolted on. Civic Kernel's AI is grounded in your city's live records — and it never invents what isn't there.
Every AI feature is included free — AI is never a paid add-on, and it is never metered per question, per seat or per city. The staff copilot, the resident assistant, content generation and translation all arrive with the platform.
Live demo — retrieval runs in your browser over illustrative seed records; swap the local retriever for your grounded endpoint to answer over the city’s real data.
"Ask the City" for residents
A public assistant grounded in your city's own content and records. Real answers for residents — not a generic FAQ.
AI content & translation
Generate city-website content and translations in seconds — bilingual EN/ES drafts your team reviews before publishing.
Address Data Healer
The AI spots a near-miss address in your records — "Mian St" vs "Main St" — and offers a one-click fix. Real data hygiene, automatically.
Safe by design: the AI drafts — it never sends. Every drafted action lands in a governed Inbox where a person approves, with a full audit trail. It emits data and drafts, never code; a hallucinated reference can't become a link.
From demo tenant to your first workflows in days
A branded tenant provisions in about a minute—we’ll do it live. We can configure your first selected workflows and prepare an AI-assisted first version of your city website in days. We can build the site with you or train your staff to create and update it. We agree the public go-live date after reviewing your data, integrations and approvals.
108 modules. Turn on what you need.
Every department a city runs — from the everyday to the specialized — built together on one codebase, sharing the same resident and the same parcel. Start with one, add the rest as you grow.
Permitting & development
10 modules From application intake to closeout — plan review, field inspections, sign, right-of-way and event permits, and the whole development lifecycle on one record.
Licensing & registrations
9 modules Issue, renew, inspect and revoke every licence and registration a city handles — searchable from one counter.
311 & service operations
6 modules Omnichannel requests with routing, SLAs, work orders, assets and a public status page.
Code, courts & compliance
6 modules Cases, citations, hearings and collections — enforcement, impound, precedent and court in one chain.
Records, governance & transparency
8 modules FOIA, agendas, code, boards, campaign finance and casework — published by default, with a governed resident intake.
Finance & revenue
10 modules Billing, payments, taxes, assessments and utility revenue — posted to a single ledger with open-data output.
Property & land
4 modules Parcel, lease, easement, cemetery and city-facility records tied to the same address graph as everything else.
Community, recreation & culture
10 modules Public web presence, events, notifications, programmes, reservations, volunteers, markets, shelter and the zoo.
Health & human services
7 modules Applications and cases across social services, housing and accessibility — with dignity safeguards built in.
Police & community trust
10 modules A public-facing and staff-facing suite — from the service hub and incident reporting to community care and review boards.
Fire & emergency
2 modules Prevention, inspections and community services for both sides of the fire department.
Transit & mobility
14 modules Routes, planning, rider tools, paratransit and microtransit, bicycle registration, road closures and parking.
Aviation & maritime
4 modules Credentialing, passenger services, noise programmes and marina berths.
Utilities & environment
6 modules Water, conservation, pretreatment, forestry, sustainability and service districts.
City hall operations
2 modules Human resources and risk management on the same core.
AI & intelligence — built into the kernel
in the kernel Included with the kernel — never a paid add-on: staff copilot, resident assistant, site builder, analytics and voice/IVR.
New modules ship continuously — every one built on the same proven core, on the same shared record. The full catalogue, screen by screen, is walked through live in the demo. AI capabilities come with the kernel and are not counted as modules.
One resident. One address. Every record.
Incumbents ship silos — permits in one system, 311 in another, often separate logins. Civic Kernel ties every module together along two axes, so the city finally sees the whole picture.
Live demo — illustrative seed parcels (the same records as the copilot and /verify above); connect the parcel graph to make it live.
Proof, not promises.
Key official actions—such as permit approvals, captured payments and resolved 311 requests—mint signed civic receipts that are sealed nightly. Supported city documents can be independently verified.
Live demo — the fingerprint math is real (SHA-256 via Web Crypto). The sealed ledger here is seed data for one sample permit; wire the tenant’s ledger endpoint to check any real city document.
Append-only audit trail
Every action is logged, immutable and timestamped — the accountability public records demand.
Your data, always portable
Full export on demand and an open API. No proprietary lock-in — your records always leave with you.
Open by default
Open data and budget transparency are published by default — the city's numbers are public without a records request.
Compare what cities can verify
Ask every provider to demonstrate the claims that matter to your city. We’ll show these capabilities in an illustrative demo, then validate your selected workflows with your data during the pilot.
| Area | Civic Kernel | What to ask to see |
|---|---|---|
| City setup | A branded tenant in about a minute; first selected workflows in days. | Time the setup and request a rollout plan. |
| Data migration | Records in the agreed pilot scope imported at no charge. | Review field mapping and an import preview. |
| City website | An AI-assisted first version in days, reviewed by city staff before publication. | See the draft, editing and approval steps. |
| Connected records | Resident and property history linked across selected modules when identifiers are available. | Trace a request or permit across departments. |
| AI | Included at no software charge; answers cite permitted records and staff approve drafts. | Inspect source records and a no-answer case. |
| Data control | Open API and full export on demand. | Request a sample export and API walkthrough. |
| Verification | Signed receipts for selected official milestones; verification for supported documents. | Verify a sample and an altered copy. |
| Training | Isolated, resettable tenant with selected modules and test data. | Run a workflow, then reset it. |
| Pilot cost | No platform, setup or agreed-import fee during the pilot; hosting, AI usage and any SMS or email notifications at cost. | Request the complete cost schedule. |
Available payment methods, integrations and rollout dates are confirmed in each city’s pilot plan.
Questions cities actually ask
Do we have to replace everything at once?
No. Start with a single module — Permits, 311 or your website — and add the rest department by department. No forced migration, no big-bang cutover.
Who owns the data?
You do. Full export on demand and an open API — your records always leave with you. There is no proprietary lock-in.
Can we bring our existing records?
Yes. Give us your existing records in whatever form you have them—exports, spreadsheets, PDFs, scans or other files. Our team handles extraction, conversion, field mapping and import at no charge during your pilot, using AI where it helps. We validate the imported records with your staff before launch.
Does it integrate with our GIS, payments and legacy systems?
Civic Kernel is API-first (headless). It connects to GIS, payment processors and existing databases instead of walling them off.
Which payment methods can residents use?
For pilots, we’re preparing online credit-card and ACH payments, plus staff-assisted paper-check intake. We’ll confirm the available methods for your city before launch.
Is it accessible and bilingual?
Yes — built to WCAG accessibility standards, with English and Spanish across notifications, the public site and the 311 flow from day one.
Can our staff practice without touching live data?
Yes. We can create an isolated training tenant with the modules your city selects and safe test data. Staff can practice and reset that tenant without changing live records.
How fast can we launch?
A branded demo tenant provisions in about a minute. We can have your first selected workflows and an AI-assisted city website draft ready in days. We agree the public go-live date with your team after reviewing data, integrations and approvals.
How does the AI stay safe with our data?
It's grounded in your live records, read-only, and only ever drafts content for staff to approve. It cites real records and can't invent one — a hallucinated reference can't become a link.
Built by people who've
done this
before
20+ years delivering software. Real government contracts won. Architecture shipped at scale — and the platform is already being built, on infrastructure we run today. Our government relations and operations team works on the ground in South Carolina and North Carolina. Civic Kernel was born and is developed in Idaho, USA — American-made GovTech, and we're proud of it.
20+ years building and shipping software — including government clients. P&L, hiring, compliance experience. Civic Kernel is built inside an operating company — the engineers, servers and support are already in place.
Active government contractor in South Carolina. RPE LLC brings established relationships with municipal stakeholders, hands-on knowledge of public-sector procurement, and experience navigating veteran-owned business opportunities.
Builds complex systems from the ground up. Leads the architecture that keeps Civic Kernel's 100+ modules on one live record — so every department reads the same resident, the same parcel, the same history.
20+ years in technology sales and government relations, including the access-control and body-worn camera systems public agencies buy. Kenny runs operations and owns the property side of our work.
Inviting a small number of design-partner cities in South Carolina and North Carolina.
Request a pilot for your city
See a branded tenant provisioned live, then plan your first workflows, data import and AI-assisted city website with our team. The platform, setup and agreed import are free during the pilot. Hosting, AI usage, and SMS and email notifications if your city uses them, are billed at cost. Book a 30-minute demo to start.
