# Texas Child Care Watcher — New Licensed Centers (`recordstack/texas-child-care-watcher`) Actor

Licensed Texas child care centers from Texas HHSC open data: newly licensed centers plus the state's own inspection and deficiency profile per facility. Filter by county, city, capacity, subsidies; only-new mode delivers centers licensed since your last run. Commercial centers only.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/recordstack/texas-child-care-watcher.md
- **Developed by:** [Alex Meacham](https://apify.com/recordstack) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Developer tools
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$10.00 / 1,000 facilities

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

## Texas Child Care Watcher — New Licensed Centers

Licensed Texas child care **centers** from Texas HHSC Child Care Regulation's official open data — newly licensed facilities plus the state's own inspection and deficiency profile for every center, in one clean feed.

### What you get

One row per licensed center: name, business location, county, capacity, ages served, programs provided, permit issuance date and type, subsidy acceptance — plus the compliance profile HHSC publishes: deficiency counts by severity (high / medium-high / medium / medium-low / low) with an arithmetic total, lifetime inspection / assessment / report counts, and the corrective-action, adverse-action and temporary-closure flags.

### Who it's for

- Child care franchisors and multi-site operators tracking new competition and market openings
- Insurers and lenders underwriting child care facilities
- Suppliers (food service, playgrounds, curriculum, staffing) selling to new centers in their first months
- Parent-information and child care referral services keeping directories current

### Filters

- **Counties / city / ZIP prefix** — watch exactly your market
- **Issued within days** — e.g. only centers licensed in the last 90 days (~150/month statewide)
- **Minimum capacity**, **accepts subsidies only**
- **Watch flags only** — only centers with a corrective action, adverse action or temporary closure
- **Only new since last run** — schedule it and receive just the centers licensed since the previous run

### Safety and data notes

- **Commercial centers only, by design.** The HHSC file also lists home-based child care and residential operations located at private residences. Those operation types are hard-excluded in this actor's code and can never be selected — only `Licensed Center` facilities at business locations are delivered.
- The feed's person fields (administrator/director name, phone, mailing address) are never requested and never appear in the output.
- Deficiency and inspection counts are HHSC's published figures for the operation, passed through as reported; the only computed field is the sum of the five deficiency counts. Counts are cumulative as published by the state, not a per-year rate, and this actor does not invent a risk score.

### Pricing

Pay per facility delivered — $0.01 per center, charged only for rows written to your dataset after filtering.

# Actor input Schema

## `counties` (type: `array`):

Only centers in these Texas counties (e.g. Travis, Harris, Dallas). Blank = statewide.

## `city` (type: `string`):

Only centers in this city (e.g. Austin). Blank = any.

## `zipPrefix` (type: `string`):

Only centers whose ZIP code starts with this prefix (e.g. 787). Blank = any.

## `minCapacity` (type: `integer`):

Only centers licensed for at least this many children. 0 = any.

## `acceptsSubsidiesOnly` (type: `boolean`):

Only centers that accept child care subsidies.

## `issuedWithinDays` (type: `integer`):

Only centers whose permit was issued within this many days. 0 = no issuance window (full directory mode).

## `includeClosed` (type: `boolean`):

Include operations HHSC no longer lists as open. Default: open centers only.

## `watchFlagsOnly` (type: `boolean`):

Only centers with a corrective action, an adverse action, or a temporary closure on their HHSC record.

## `onlyNewSinceLastRun` (type: `boolean`):

Monitor mode: return only centers this actor has not delivered in earlier runs (state kept in the actor's key-value store).

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

Cap on centers delivered (and charged) per run.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "counties": [],
  "city": "",
  "zipPrefix": "",
  "minCapacity": 0,
  "acceptsSubsidiesOnly": false,
  "issuedWithinDays": 0,
  "includeClosed": false,
  "watchFlagsOnly": false,
  "onlyNewSinceLastRun": false,
  "maxResults": 500
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `datasetUrl` (type: `string`):

Open the dataset with the rows found in this run.

# 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 = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("recordstack/texas-child-care-watcher").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 = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("recordstack/texas-child-care-watcher").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 '{}' |
apify call recordstack/texas-child-care-watcher --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,recordstack/texas-child-care-watcher"
        }
    }
}
```

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/7chtnHsutrHiKUkjQ/builds/1tKy5vtAE13l5MDRY/openapi.json