# Federal Contract Finder (`arched_friend/federal-contract-finder`) Actor

Search every US federal contract and grant award by keyword, agency or competitor name. Returns the recipient, the money, the agency, the dates and a link to the award, and flags what is new or has grown since your last run.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/arched\_friend/federal-contract-finder.md
- **Developed by:** [Peach O](https://apify.com/arched_friend) (community)
- **Categories:** Business, Lead generation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$2.00 / 1,000 award returneds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Federal Contract Finder: See Who Is Winning US Government Work

Search every US federal contract and grant award by what the work is, which agency paid for it, or which company won it. You get the recipient, the money, the agency, the period of performance and a link to the award — and on every run after the first, what is new and what has grown.

Built for teams selling into the US government, and for anyone who currently finds out a competitor won a recompete when it is already too late to bid.

### How it works

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    A["Keywords, agencies<br/>or competitor names"] --> B["USAspending API"]
    B --> C["Awards with money,<br/>agency and dates"]
    C --> D{"Seen last run?"}
    D -->|no| E["new-award"]
    D -->|amount moved| F["amount-increased"]
    D -->|same| G["unchanged"]
    E --> H[("Award feed")]
    F --> H
    C --> I["Top recipients<br/>by money won"]
```

No scraping and no API key. This reads USAspending.gov, the US Treasury's own open data API, so it does not break when a website is restyled and it needs no proxy or browser.

### Built for

- **Government sales and capture teams** tracking spend in their category
- **Bid and proposal teams** watching a recompete before the RFP drops
- **Competitive intelligence** following what a rival wins, from whom, and for how much
- **Investors and analysts** sizing a company's federal revenue
- **Journalists and researchers** following public money

### Input

```json
{
  "keywords": ["cybersecurity"],
  "agencies": ["Department of Homeland Security"],
  "minAmount": 1000000,
  "onlyNew": true
}
```

| Setting | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| `keywords` | Words in the award description — the main search |
| `agencies` | Limit to agencies, spelled as USAspending spells them |
| `recipientSearch` | Limit to companies by name — watch a competitor |
| `awardTypes` | `contracts`, `grants`, `directPayments`, `loans`, `other` |
| `lastDays` / `dateFrom` / `dateTo` | The period to search |
| `minAmount` / `maxAmount` | Keep only awards worth your time |
| `recipientExcludes` | Drop the primes you cannot compete with |
| `onlyNew` | Return nothing on a quiet run |
| `timeBudgetSecs` | How long a run may spend paging before returning what it has |

### Output

```json
{
  "awardId": "FA862118F6251",
  "recipient": "LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION",
  "amount": 666315748.84,
  "outlays": 242708.65,
  "agency": "Department of Defense",
  "subAgency": "Department of the Air Force",
  "awardType": "DELIVERY ORDER",
  "startDate": "2018-02-08",
  "endDate": "2027-01-31",
  "description": "AFSOC ACTS AWARD OF CONTRACT FOR CLS, ENGINEERING, INSTRUCTION, CYBERSECURITY, DMO",
  "url": "https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_FA862118F6251_9700_FA862115D6276_9700",
  "changeType": "amount-increased",
  "previousAmount": 651315748.84,
  "amountChange": 15000000,
  "checkedAt": "2026-09-21T17:40:12.101Z"
}
```

`endDate` is the one to sort on: a contract ending in nine months is a recompete you can still prepare for.

**Awards grow.** A federal contract is not static — a modification raises the obligated amount on an award you have already seen. That is reported as `amount-increased` with the exact delta, rather than being buried as `unchanged`, because a contract quietly doubling is usually the more interesting signal.

### Turn it into a recompete alert

```json
{
  "keywords": ["cloud migration"],
  "recipientSearch": ["Booz Allen"],
  "onlyNew": true
}
```

Schedule it weekly. The first run records the landscape without alerting; every run after returns only awards that landed or grew.

### Run it as an API

```bash
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/arched_friend~federal-contract-finder/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "keywords": ["drone"],
    "agencies": ["Department of Defense"],
    "minAmount": 5000000
  }'
```

### Pricing

You pay $0.002 for each award returned. A run that finds nothing new costs nothing.

| Tracking a category weekly | Monthly cost |
| --- | --- |
| Reading USAspending by hand | hours per week |
| GovWin, Bloomberg Government and similar | $1,200 to $20,000 per year |
| This Actor | around $1.60 per month at 200 awards a week |

### Common questions

**Is this opportunities or awards?** Awards — money already committed. That tells you who is winning, what agencies actually buy and when a contract ends. For the notice before the award, watch the agency's own postings.

**Why did the first run return everything?** A first run has no baseline, so alerting on years of history would be noise. Those rows are labelled `first-run`; the run after is when `new-award` starts meaning something.

**Why is `awardType` sometimes worded oddly?** It is passed through exactly as USAspending publishes it — `DELIVERY ORDER`, `PROJECT GRANT (B)` and so on — rather than reworded into something that no longer matches the source.

**How current is the data?** USAspending is updated as agencies report, typically within days for contracts. It is the same feed that powers usaspending.gov.

**Do I need an API key?** No. USAspending is open and keyless.

### Related products

- **EU Tender Monitor** for the European public-sector side of the same pipeline
- **Company Hiring Monitor** to see a competitor staffing up for the work they just won
- **SEC Filing Monitor** for the public-company view of the same contractors
- **Regulation Change Monitor** for the rules that create the spending in the first place

# Actor input Schema

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

Words that appear in the award description, one per line, for example cybersecurity or drone maintenance. This is the main search.

## `agencies` (type: `array`):

Optional. Limit to specific agencies, spelled as USAspending spells them, for example Department of Defense or Department of Homeland Security.

## `recipientSearch` (type: `array`):

Optional. Limit to companies whose name matches, one per line. Use this to watch a competitor's federal wins.

## `awardTypes` (type: `array`):

Which families of federal money to search. Contracts are procurement; grants are assistance.

## `lastDays` (type: `integer`):

How far back to search from today. Ignored when you set explicit dates below.

## `dateFrom` (type: `string`):

Optional explicit start date as YYYY-MM-DD. Overrides the look-back.

## `dateTo` (type: `string`):

Optional explicit end date as YYYY-MM-DD. Defaults to today.

## `minAmount` (type: `integer`):

Drop awards below this value. 0 means no minimum.

## `maxAmount` (type: `integer`):

Drop awards above this value. 0 means no maximum.

## `recipientExcludes` (type: `array`):

Drop awards whose recipient name contains any of these, one per line. Useful for filtering out the primes you cannot compete with.

## `descriptionExcludes` (type: `array`):

Drop awards whose description contains any of these words, one per line.

## `onlyNew` (type: `boolean`):

Return nothing on a quiet run. Turn this on for a scheduled search so you only hear about awards that landed or grew since last time.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

The most awards to pull in one run. Results come back largest first.

## `requestTimeoutSecs` (type: `integer`):

How long to wait for a single page of results before giving up on it.

## `timeBudgetSecs` (type: `integer`):

How long the run may spend paging before it returns what it has. Keeps a scheduled run predictable.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "keywords": [
    "cybersecurity"
  ],
  "awardTypes": [
    "contracts"
  ],
  "lastDays": 365,
  "minAmount": 0,
  "maxAmount": 0,
  "onlyNew": false,
  "maxResults": 200,
  "requestTimeoutSecs": 45,
  "timeBudgetSecs": 180
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `awards` (type: `string`):

One row per federal award with its recipient, amount, agency, dates, description and a link, plus whether it is new or has grown since the last run.

## `runSummary` (type: `string`):

Totals for the search, counts of new and changed awards, and the recipients winning the most money.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "keywords": [
        "cybersecurity"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("arched_friend/federal-contract-finder").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "keywords": ["cybersecurity"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("arched_friend/federal-contract-finder").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "keywords": [
    "cybersecurity"
  ]
}' |
apify call arched_friend/federal-contract-finder --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,arched_friend/federal-contract-finder"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/lGDyzHZRwLcBnFcrL/builds/uUc8MyKQ2Gp8xGAfF/openapi.json