GovCon Monitor — SAM.gov Opportunities + Expiring-Contract Recompete Radar

Federal contracting is a $700B/year market where the winners are decided long before the RFP drops. This actor is a standing monitor with three modes:

1. opportunities — new SAM.gov notices matching your NAICS / agency / set-aside / keyword filters (official free SAM.gov API).
2. awards — recently signed contract awards from USAspending (official free API, no key).
3. recompete — the money mode: contracts whose period of performance ends within your horizon, pulled from USAspending award history and (when you provide a SAM.gov key) joined against live SAM.gov notices to show which expirations already have a recompete posted — and which are still open field. Nobody else does this join.

Why recompete mode matters

Every expiring contract is a future RFP. If you find it 12 months out you can shape the requirement, meet the program office, and team up. If you find it on SAM.gov, you're 6 months behind the incumbent. Recompete mode gives you, per contract: incumbent, agency, NAICS, value, end date, days_until_expiry, an expiry_bucket (0-3 / 3-6 / 6-12 / 12+ months) and recompete_posted with any matching live notices.

Output sample (recompete mode)

{
  "record_type": "recompete",
  "award_id": "70US0921F1DHS0015",
  "recipient": "AVER LLC",
  "awarding_agency": "Department of Homeland Security",
  "awarding_sub_agency": "Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency",
  "naics": "541512",
  "naics_description": "COMPUTER SYSTEMS DESIGN SERVICES",
  "amount": 4689264.0,
  "start_date": "2021-09-13",
  "end_date": "2027-08-03",
  "days_until_expiry": 364,
  "expiry_bucket": "6-12 months",
  "description": "CDM DEFEND TASK ORDER...",
  "usaspending_url": "https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_...",
  "recompete_posted": false,
  "possible_recompete_notices": []
}

When a SAM.gov key is provided, possible_recompete_notices lists live notices whose NAICS matches and whose title overlaps the award description/incumbent (heuristic join, matched terms included so you can judge each hit).

Input

{
  "mode": "recompete",
  "samApiKey": "YOUR-FREE-SAM-GOV-KEY",
  "naicsCodes": ["541512", "541511"],
  "agencies": ["Department of Defense"],
  "setAsides": ["SBA", "SDVOSBC"],
  "keywords": ["cybersecurity"],
  "monthsAhead": 12,
  "minAwardAmount": 1000000
}

Getting your free SAM.gov API key (2 minutes, standard practice)

1. Sign in (or register, free) at sam.gov.
2. Click your name → Account Details.
3. In the API Key section, enter your password and click Request/Generate API Key. Copy it into the samApiKey input.
4. Keys expire after 90 days — regenerate in the same place when the actor reports an auth error.

awards mode needs no key at all; recompete works without one (the live-notice join is simply skipped and recompete_posted is null).

Use cases

• BD pipeline for contractors — a scheduled recompete run per NAICS is your 12-month capture list.
• Small-business set-aside hunting — filter opportunities by SDVOSBC, 8A, WOSB...
• Competitive intel — track every award your competitors win (awards mode, keyword = their name).
• Teaming radar — expiring contracts where the incumbent is out of your size standard = prime/sub openings.

Using from Claude / MCP

{
  "tool": "your-username/govcon-monitor",
  "input": { "mode": "recompete", "samApiKey": "…", "naicsCodes": ["541512"], "monthsAhead": 12 }
}

"Which DHS IT contracts over $1M expire in the next year and don't have a recompete posted yet?" — one call.

Pricing

Monthly rental: $15/month flat after a 7-day free trial. It's a monitoring product — schedule it daily/weekly and every run is included. (One shaped opportunity pays for a decade of subscriptions.)

Data & fair use

Both upstream APIs are official U.S. government open-data services (SAM.gov Get Opportunities Public API, USAspending API). The SAM.gov key is your own and is used only against api.sam.gov; it is stored as a secret input. Requests are paced and retried with exponential backoff to stay well inside published rate limits.