UK Public Procurement Monitor (Find a Tender+Contracts Finder)

UK Public Procurement Monitor (Find a Tender + Contracts Finder)

A production-grade, unified procurement monitoring Actor and Streamable HTTP Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for UK public sector opportunities. Automatically ingests, normalizes, deduplicates, and filters tenders and contract awards from both Find a Tender (FTS) and Contracts Finder (CF) via native Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS 1.1.5) APIs.

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⚡ Model Context Protocol (MCP) Integration

Connect this Actor directly to Claude Desktop, Cursor IDE, ChatGPT, or custom AI agent frameworks to give your AI real-time search capabilities across UK government procurement.

MCP Endpoint URL

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=capitalist_developer/uk-procurement-unified-monitor

Claude Desktop Configuration (claude_desktop_config.json)

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "uk-procurement": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "mcp-remote-client",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=capitalist_developer/uk-procurement-unified-monitor"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Available MCP Tool: search_uk_tenders

AI assistants can directly query tenders using flexible parameters:

• keywords: Array of search terms (e.g. ["software", "cloud", "cybersecurity"])
• cpvCodes: CPV prefixes or full codes (e.g. ["72000000"])
• portals: ["find_a_tender", "contracts_finder"]
• stages: ["tender", "planning", "award"]
• minValueGbp / maxValueGbp: Contract budget thresholds
• daysBack: Number of lookback days (default 7)
• maxItems: Number of notices to return

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🚀 Key Features

• Unified Ingestion: Ingests from both primary UK portals into one consistent, flattened schema:
  • Find a Tender Service (FTS): High-value public tenders above GPA thresholds.
  • Contracts Finder (CF): Central government and wider public sector opportunities from £12,000+.
• Zero Browser Overhead: Pure Node.js 20 ESM engine built with undici and zod. Ultra-fast, lightweight (256MB RAM), and no browser or Playwright overhead.
• Resilient & Self-Healing: Automatic 3-retry exponential backoff handling HTTP 429 rate limits, 5xx server errors, and intermittent government API maintenance.
• Stateful Incremental Runs: Optional onlyNewSinceLastRun mode uses a dedicated Key-Value Store (uk-tenders-seen-ids) with a 50,000-ID FIFO cache to ensure you only receive fresh, unread tenders.
• Pay-Per-Event (PPE) Support: Supports granular pay-per-event pricing (mcp-lookup flat query fee and tender-notice per delivered notice) with immediate budget-cap enforcement.

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🎯 High-Value Use Cases

1. B2B GovTech & SaaS Sales Prospecting: Identify commercial tender opportunities for software, cloud hosting, AI solutions, and managed IT services the minute they are published.
2. Consulting & Defense Bidding Alerts: Track frameworks, engineering tenders, and advisory RFPs across local councils, the NHS, and central ministries.
3. Automated Pipeline Integrations: Run on scheduled cron intervals (hourly or daily) with onlyNewSinceLastRun=true and push newly announced tenders directly to Slack, Teams, or your CRM via webhooks.
4. Competitor & Award Analysis: Inspect awardedSuppliers and historical contract values to monitor vendor incumbency and government spending patterns.

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📋 Input Configuration

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
keywords	Array of strings	[]	Keywords to filter titles and descriptions (case-insensitive).
cpvCodes	Array of strings	[]	Common Procurement Vocabulary codes (e.g. ["72000000"]).
portals	Array of strings	["find_a_tender", "contracts_finder"]	Procurement portals to search (find_a_tender, contracts_finder).
stages	Array of strings	["tender", "planning"]	Procurement stages (tender, planning, award).
minValueGbp	Integer	null	Minimum contract value filter in GBP.
maxValueGbp	Integer	null	Maximum contract value filter in GBP.
daysBack	Integer	7	Number of days back to look for updated/published notices.
onlyNewSinceLastRun	Boolean	false	When true, filters out tenders seen in previous runs.
maxItems	Integer	100	Maximum number of notices to return and save to dataset.

Sample INPUT.json

{
    "keywords": ["software", "cloud"],
    "cpvCodes": ["48000000"],
    "portals": ["find_a_tender", "contracts_finder"],
    "stages": ["tender"],
    "daysBack": 7,
    "maxItems": 10,
    "onlyNewSinceLastRun": false
}

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📊 Sample Output (Flattened Dataset Item)

{
    "ocid": "ocds-b5fd17-c8cd22a2-0eaa-4706-83c7-2cc7e56bf485",
    "releaseId": "3d3f328e-bb59-4220-bd34-085bb4e72eef-921030",
    "sourcePortal": "contracts_finder",
    "title": "Joint Contract for Supply and support My Council Services Digital Transformation Platform for Waste & Environmental Services",
    "description": "Joint Contract for Supply and support My Council Services Digital Transformation Platform for Waste & Environmental Services under G-Cloud 14 Framework Agreement (RM1557.14) Lots 1 & 3",
    "buyerName": "Redditch Borough & Bromsgrove District Councils",
    "cpvCodes": ["48000000"],
    "stage": "tender",
    "valueAmount": null,
    "currency": "GBP",
    "publishedDate": "2026-11-09T13:12:19Z",
    "deadlineDate": "2025-03-28T12:00:00Z",
    "noticeUrl": "https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/3d3f328e-bb59-4220-bd34-085bb4e72eef",
    "documentPdfUrls": [],
    "awardedSuppliers": []
}

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🛠️ Architecture & Core Components

uk-procurement-unified-monitor/
├── .actor/
│   ├── actor.json           # Standby mode, MCP path (/mcp), 256MB-512MB RAM
│   ├── input_schema.json    # Zod/JSON input schema specification
│   ├── output_schema.json   # Unified table view definition
│   ├── dataset_schema.json  # Dataset overview transformation
│   └── pay_per_event.json   # Pay-per-event pricing (mcp-lookup, tender-notice)
├── src/
│   ├── core/
│   │   ├── lookup.js        # Undici OCDS 1.1.5 client with 3-retry exponential backoff
│   │   ├── normalize.js     # Normalizer & in-memory keywords/CPV/value filter
│   │   └── state.js         # Key-Value Store deduplication (50,000 ID capacity)
│   ├── mcp/
│   │   └── server.js        # Streamable HTTP MCP Server (/mcp) with Zod tool
│   └── main.js              # Standby MCP vs. Batch Runner router
├── Dockerfile               # Node 20-slim lean production container
└── package.json             # ESM project definition

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🧪 Local Testing

Run Batch Mode with charging logs enabled:

$ACTOR_USE_CHARGING_LOG_DATASET=1 apify run --input-file=test-input.json

Run Standby MCP Server locally:

$STANDBY_MODE=1 node src/main.js

Then send a test JSON-RPC request to http://localhost:4321/mcp:

curl -X POST http://localhost:4321/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 1,
    "method": "tools/call",
    "params": {
      "name": "search_uk_tenders",
      "arguments": {
        "keywords": ["software"],
        "daysBack": 7,
        "maxItems": 5
      }
    }
  }'

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📄 License

ISC © Capitalist_Builder