Hyperledger Labs provides a space (i.e., GitHub repos) where work can easily be started without the creation of a project. Please refer to the Hyperledger Labs wiki page for additional information.
Fork the hyperledger-labs.github.io repository.
Fill out the Proposal Template and save it into the labs subdirectory under the name of your lab, such as mynewlab.md. It is expected that your lab repository will have the same name so keep that in mind.
Submit a Pull Request.
The labs stewards will then review your proposal.
By default the Lab stewards will create a new respository for you to start from but if you have an existing github repo you would like to bring to your proposed lab you have the option to request for that repo to be reused instead. This is however only possible if every commit in your existing repo is signed-off so there is no DCO related issues. If that is not the case, you will need to bring your code by squashing all of your commits into a single first commit made against your new lab repo with your sign-off.