Agency Buying Patterns — what an agency buys, and from how many vendors

What does an agency actually buy, in which NAICS, and from how many vendors? This actor returns federal contract obligations, contract counts, and distinct-contractor counts by awarding agency × NAICS × fiscal year — the shape of an agency's spending and how concentrated (or competitive) it is. With a full citation receipt.

Built for market-sizing and account planning by business-development teams, and for AI agents researching where federal dollars go, with the exact public source attached to every number.

Data comes straight from USASpending.gov — the primary, public-domain federal record of contract awards. No aggregator, no scoring, no editorializing.

What you can ask

• What does the Department of Energy buy in NAICS 541715 (R&D), and from how many distinct contractors?
• Ranked by obligated dollars, what are an agency's biggest buying lines?
• How did an agency's spending in a NAICS look in fiscal year 2024?

Keywords: agency spending, buying patterns, market research, market sizing, obligations, NAICS, fiscal year, distinct vendors, competition, contract counts, GovCon, business development, account planning, federal budget, awarding agency, USAspending, where the money goes, procurement forecast.

Input

All filters are optional. With none, it ranks the whole procurement footprint by obligated dollars.

Field	Type	Required	Notes
agency	string	no	Awarding-agency name prefix.
naics	string	no	NAICS code or 2–6 digit prefix.
fiscal_year	integer	no	One U.S. fiscal year.
limit	integer 1–500	no (default 50)	Max rows.

{ "agency": "Department of Energy", "naics": "5417", "fiscal_year": 2024 }

Output — an answer with a receipt

The actor returns one receipt object (also stored as the run's OUTPUT). The answer is the ranked rows; matches declares the exact cross-source joins, and citations is the exact source you can re-run yourself.

{
  "answer": [
    {
      "awarding_agency": "Department of Energy",
      "awarding_agency_code": "089",
      "naics_code": "541715",
      "naics_description": "RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT",
      "fiscal_year": 2024,
      "total_cents": 6581653008079,
      "contract_count": 42,
      "recipient_count": 11
    }
  ],
  "matches": [
    {
      "match_method": "exact",
      "left_key": "usaspending.awarding_agency_code",
      "right_key": "citature.entity_agency_code.agency_code"
    },
    {
      "match_method": "exact",
      "left_key": "usaspending.recipient_uei",
      "right_key": "citature.entity_recipient.uei"
    }
  ],
  "coverage": [
    "Coverage reflects records currently in citature's dataset, not the full upstream history."
  ],
  "guardrails": [
    "Research over public-domain federal records — not legal, financial, or eligibility advice.",
    "citature reports what the record says. It never renders a compliance verdict, a screening pass/fail, or a recommendation.",
    "Entity-level records only (committees, candidates, recipients, agencies, contracts). No individual-person data."
  ],
  "schema_version": "0.1.0"
}

Money is always integer cents (total_cents). The agency is resolved on its official toptier code, and the distinct-contractor count is over the UEI — both exact joins, declared in matches.

Guardrails

• Research over public-domain federal records — not legal, financial, or eligibility advice.
• citature reports what the record says. It never renders a determination or a recommendation.
• Entity-level records only. No individual-person data is ever returned.

Pricing

Pay per successful answer. You are charged only when an answer is served; a rejected or failed request is never billed.