Buenos Aires Province (PBAC) Public Tenders Monitor

What this monitors

Buenos Aires Province — Argentina's most populous province — publishes its public tenders on PBAC (pbac.cgp.gba.gov.ar) across three separate grids: upcoming openings, tenders from the last 30 days, and awarded processes. This is the provincial procurement portal specifically — not the City of Buenos Aires (CABA) and not Argentina's national procurement system, which run on entirely separate sites with entirely separate data.

PBAC gives no per-tender bookmark URL to track a single listing by. Keeping an eye on it by hand means revisiting all three grids on a schedule and manually comparing each row against what you remember from the last check — a tedious, error-prone process for anyone tracking public-sector bidding opportunities, contract awards, or a portfolio of tenders on behalf of clients. This actor automates that comparison: it extracts all three grids on every run and, in delta mode, reports only what genuinely changed since the previous run — a new listing, a move between grids or a status change, an amended field, or a tender that has disappeared from the site entirely.

Suppliers to provincial organisms, compliance and legal teams tracking new bidding opportunities, and bid consultants managing several clients' tracked tenders all use the same underlying feed: a structured, per-process record with an explicit event_type, ready to route, notify on, or log — instead of a manual re-check against memory.

How it works

flowchart LR
    A["PBAC homepage<br/>pbac.cgp.gba.gov.ar<br/>(3 grids, server-rendered HTML)"] -->|"Residential + AR proxy"| B["Cheerio parse<br/>apertura_proxima / ultimos_30_dias / adjudicados"]
    B --> C["sha1 contentHash<br/>+ vistaOrigen / estado"]
    C --> D["Named KV store<br/>pba-tenders-monitor-delta-state<br/>(up to 3,000 processes)"]
    D --> E{"Compare to<br/>persisted state"}
    E -->|"never seen before"| F["NEW_LISTING"]
    E -->|"vistaOrigen or estado changed"| G["STATUS_CHANGE"]
    E -->|"hash changed only"| H["UPDATED"]
    E -->|"missing from every grid"| I["CLOSED"]
    E -->|"no change"| J["UNCHANGED"]
    F --> K["result event<br/>$0.003"]
    G --> K
    H --> K
    I --> L["result-summary event<br/>$0.001"]
    K --> M["Dataset push"]
    L --> M
    J --> M

PBAC server-renders all three grids directly in the homepage HTML — no login and no browser needed to read them. Each run classifies every row against state persisted in a named key-value store (rather than the run's own isolated default store), which is what makes "only new/changed since last run" work across a scheduled run at all. CLOSED is only ever reported when views covers all three default grids, since a narrower selection would make the fetch a genuine subset of the site.

Features

Feature	Detail
Three-grid extraction	Pulls apertura_proxima (upcoming openings), ultimos_30_dias (last 30 days), and adjudicados (awarded) in one run, selectable via views
Delta mode	onlyNew returns only tenders that are new, changed, amended, or closed since a prior run — tracked in a named, persistent key-value store
Four event types	eventTypes filters delivery to any of NEW_LISTING, STATUS_CHANGE, UPDATED, CLOSED
Content-hash change detection	A sha1 fingerprint (contentHash) over descripcion, tipoProcedimiento, fechaApertura, and organismo catches silent amendments even when status hasn't moved
Opening-date filter	dateRange (24h / 7d / 30d) restricts results by fechaApertura
Hard item cap	maxItems bounds records pushed to the dataset per run (PBAC returns every row with no pagination, so this trims output, not the underlying fetch)
Residential Argentina proxy by default	proxyConfiguration prefills Residential + AR, required because PBAC blocks non-residential, non-Argentina traffic
Standardized B2B envelope	Every record carries record_id, event_type, previousVistaOrigen, previousEstado, is_new, source_url, and contentHash alongside the raw PBAC fields

Cost & BYOK Disclosure

No third-party key required. This Actor needs nothing beyond your Apify account (and its own prewired Residential + Argentina proxy configuration) — there is no BYOK requirement and no separate PBAC credential involved.

Event	Price	Charged when
result	$0.003 per record	NEW_LISTING, STATUS_CHANGE, or UPDATED
result-summary	$0.001 per record	CLOSED — a derived absence signal, nothing fetched
Actor start	$0.00005	Once per run

Precise figures live on the Apify Store listing pricing tab, which is the pricing source of truth for this Actor — the table above lists the real event names and what triggers them. Residential proxy bandwidth is billed separately through your own Apify plan's proxy/data-transfer usage, not through the per-event prices above.

Unchanged records are never billed. Every extracted row is fingerprinted with a sha1 contentHash plus its vistaOrigen/estado pair and compared against the last-known state in a named key-value store; a row whose contentHash, vistaOrigen and estado all still match what this Actor delivered on a previous run is classified UNCHANGED and is suppressed before delivery — it never reaches the dataset and is never charged. The underlying page fetch itself is never charged either — only genuinely new information is billed, and a CLOSED detection costs a third of a full record because it's inferred from absence rather than newly extracted. A daily monitor finding a handful of changes across all three grids runs to roughly a few cents a day; fetchFullDetail does not add a separate charge, since that enrichment is disclosed below as not yet substantively useful and charging more for it would not be honest.

Quickstart

Also runnable from the Apify Console or the Apify CLI:

apify call stefano_seggio/pba-tenders-monitor --input '{
  "views": ["apertura_proxima", "ultimos_30_dias", "adjudicados"],
  "onlyNew": true,
  "eventTypes": ["NEW_LISTING", "STATUS_CHANGE", "CLOSED"],
  "maxItems": 200,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "AR"
  }
}'

Each dataset item is one tender row plus its delta classification, for example:

{
  "record_id": "2026-338-99-265",
  "event_type": "STATUS_CHANGE",
  "previousVistaOrigen": null,
  "previousEstado": "Publicado",
  "numeroProceso": "2026-338-99-265",
  "descripcion": "Adquisicion de insumos medicos",
  "tipoProcedimiento": "Licitacion Publica",
  "fechaApertura": "2026-09-15 10:00",
  "estado": "En Evaluacion",
  "organismo": "Ministerio de Salud",
  "vistaOrigen": "ultimos_30_dias",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-09T14:32:00.000Z"
}

cURL (instant terminal run)

Runs synchronously and returns the resulting dataset items directly in the response - no polling needed. Get your token from console.apify.com/settings/integrations.

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/yWvRQyWSyGVLJPtQ7/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_API_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "maxItems": 50,
  "onlyNew": true
}'

Python (apify_client)

# run_monitor.py
# Calls the PBAC Buenos Aires Province Tenders Monitor actor (yWvRQyWSyGVLJPtQ7)
# and prints the resulting new/changed/closed tender records.
import os

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"])  # set this in your shell before running

run_input = {
    "views": ["apertura_proxima", "ultimos_30_dias", "adjudicados"],
    "onlyNew": True,
    "eventTypes": ["NEW_LISTING", "STATUS_CHANGE", "CLOSED"],
    "maxItems": 200,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": True,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
        "apifyProxyCountry": "AR",
    },
}

# Runs the actor and waits for it to finish before returning
run = client.actor("yWvRQyWSyGVLJPtQ7").call(run_input=run_input)

print(f"Run finished with status: {run['status']}")

# Pull the records the run pushed to its default dataset
dataset_items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items
print(f"Retrieved {len(dataset_items)} tender record(s)")

for item in dataset_items:
    event = item["event_type"]
    numero = item["numeroProceso"]
    descripcion = item["descripcion"]
    estado = item["estado"]
    print(f"[{event}] {numero} - {descripcion} ({estado})")

A full, runnable copy of this script lives at examples/run_monitor.py.

Node.js (apify-client)

// run-monitor.js
// Calls the PBAC Buenos Aires Province Tenders Monitor actor (yWvRQyWSyGVLJPtQ7)
// and logs the resulting new/changed/closed tender records.
const { ApifyClient } = require('apify-client');

const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN, // set this in your shell before running
});

async function main() {
    const input = {
        views: ['apertura_proxima', 'ultimos_30_dias', 'adjudicados'],
        onlyNew: true,
        eventTypes: ['NEW_LISTING', 'STATUS_CHANGE', 'CLOSED'],
        maxItems: 200,
        proxyConfiguration: {
            useApifyProxy: true,
            apifyProxyGroups: ['RESIDENTIAL'],
            apifyProxyCountry: 'AR',
        },
    };

    // Runs the actor and waits for it to finish before returning
    const run = await client.actor('yWvRQyWSyGVLJPtQ7').call(input);

    // Pull the records the run pushed to its default dataset
    const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

    console.log(`Run finished with status: ${run.status}`);
    console.log(`Retrieved ${items.length} tender record(s)`);

    for (const item of items) {
        console.log(`[${item.event_type}] ${item.numeroProceso} - ${item.descripcion} (${item.estado})`);
    }
}

main().catch((err) => {
    console.error('Run failed:', err.message);
    process.exit(1);
});

A full, runnable copy of this script lives at examples/run-monitor.js.

Use this from Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Windsurf (via MCP)

This Actor is also reachable as an MCP tool through Apify's own hosted @apify/actors-mcp-server, scoped to just this one Actor via a ?tools= query string — not the full fleet. Get a token from Apify Console → Settings → Integrations first.

Claude Desktop (%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS) — uses the mcp-remote stdio bridge. Note: mcp-remote does not expand shell environment variables inside the JSON string, so paste the literal token in place of ${APIFY_TOKEN} below, and keep this file out of version control.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "delta-registry-pba-tenders-monitor": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=stefano_seggio/pba-tenders-monitor",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer ${APIFY_TOKEN}"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json) — native HTTP transport:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "delta-registry-pba-tenders-monitor": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=stefano_seggio/pba-tenders-monitor",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${APIFY_TOKEN}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Windsurf (~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json) — uses serverUrl, not url. Windsurf's ${env:...} syntax genuinely does resolve from the environment, unlike Claude Desktop's config above:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "delta-registry-pba-tenders-monitor": {
      "serverUrl": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=stefano_seggio/pba-tenders-monitor",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:APIFY_TOKEN}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Want the full 28-actor fleet in one closed-scope config instead of just this Actor? See MCP_INTEGRATION.md in the delta-registry-website repo.

Input & Output Schema

Input

Field definitions come straight from ./.actor/input_schema.json.

Field	Type	Default	Description
views	string[]	all three	Which PBAC grids to extract: apertura_proxima (upcoming openings), ultimos_30_dias (last 30 days), adjudicados (awarded).
fetchFullDetail	boolean	false	Simulates the per-process postback. Known limitation: currently returns only a short status label, not the full Pliego document text - see Known limitations below.
maxItems	integer	200	Hard cap on the number of tender processes returned this run, across all selected views.
proxyConfiguration	object	Residential + AR	Required: PBAC blocks non-residential, non-Argentina traffic. Verified live - a datacenter proxy times out identically to no proxy at all. Do not switch to datacenter.
onlyNew	boolean	false	Delta mode: return only tenders that are new, changed vistaOrigen/estado, amended or closed since a prior run (tracked in a named key-value store). CLOSED is only computed when views covers all 3 default views.
eventTypes	string[]	all four	Which kinds of change to deliver when onlyNew is on (ignored when it's off): NEW_LISTING, STATUS_CHANGE, UPDATED, CLOSED.
dateRange	string (enum)	-	24h / 7d / 30d - restricts results by fechaApertura. Independent of onlyNew. Note: fechaApertura is routinely a future date for apertura_proxima rows, so this filter will not match those rows.

Output

One real record from this Actor's own dataset, matching .actor/dataset_schema.json:

{
  "numeroProceso": "2026-338-99-265",
  "descripcion": "Adquisicion de mobiliario escolar para establecimientos de la Region 5",
  "tipoProcedimiento": "Licitacion Publica",
  "fechaApertura": "23/09/2026 11:00",
  "estado": "Publicado",
  "organismo": "Direccion General de Cultura y Educacion",
  "vistaOrigen": "ultimos_30_dias",
  "detalleCompleto": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-15T14:15:20.000Z",
  "record_id": "2026-338-99-265",
  "event_type": "NEW_LISTING",
  "previousVistaOrigen": null,
  "previousEstado": null,
  "is_new": true,
  "source_url": "https://pbac.cgp.gba.gov.ar/",
  "contentHash": "c8e3f6b9d2a5c8e1f4b7d03a8f1e6c9b2d450712"
}

Field	Description
numeroProceso	PBAC process number, e.g. 2026-338-99-265.
descripcion	Short description of the tender.
tipoProcedimiento	Licitacion Publica, Licitacion Privada, or Procedimiento Abreviado.
fechaApertura	Opening date and time as shown by PBAC.
estado	Publicado, En Apertura, En Evaluacion, Disponible Para Adjudicar, etc.
organismo	Contracting unit/agency.
vistaOrigen	Which PBAC grid this row came from: apertura_proxima, ultimos_30_dias, or adjudicados.
detalleCompleto	Full document preview text, only populated when fetchFullDetail is enabled (see Known limitations).
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp of extraction.
record_id	Same value as numeroProceso.
event_type	NEW_LISTING, STATUS_CHANGE, UPDATED, UNCHANGED (only when onlyNew is off), or CLOSED.
previousVistaOrigen / previousEstado	Set only when event_type=STATUS_CHANGE and that field changed.
is_new	true if this id was not in the persisted seen-set when this run started.
source_url	The PBAC homepage - this portal has no per-tender deep link.
contentHash	sha1 fingerprint used to detect UPDATED between runs.

Why not just scrape it yourself

• Zero infrastructure — no server, container, or cron box to keep alive between checks.
• Managed scheduling — put the actor on an Apify schedule and it runs unattended, with retries and logs handled by the platform.
• No proxy or session babysitting — PBAC blocks non-residential, non-Argentina traffic outright; the Residential + Argentina proxy this actor requires is prewired in, rather than something you'd have to source, rotate, and pay for separately.
• Built-in delta and change detection — the named key-value store, content-hash fingerprinting, and four-way event classification (new / status change / updated / closed) are the actual hard part of monitoring PBAC by hand, already solved and exposed as a clean event_type field.

Known limitations

• fetchFullDetail is thin today. The per-process postback mechanism works — it returns a 200 with genuinely new content — but the text captured is a short status label, not the full Pliego document text. The real content likely sits in a nested panel not yet mapped. Disclosed here rather than shipped silently; the three summary grids, the actor's core value, are unaffected.
• Column labels (tipoProcedimiento, estado) are extracted as free text exactly as PBAC renders them, so values may vary slightly across process types.
• dateRange filters on fechaApertura (scheduled opening date), which is routinely a future date for apertura_proxima rows — it will not match those rows.
• Whether PBAC's own grids are internally capped (e.g. showing only the most recent N rows) has not been independently re-verified against a full live capture.
• Requires a Residential + Argentina proxy, handled automatically by the default proxyConfiguration — do not switch this to a datacenter proxy.
• No contractual support SLA. This Actor is built and maintained by an independent developer; bug reports and feature requests go through the Apify Store's Issues tab and are typically addressed within about 48 hours.

Contributing & Local Setup

This repository contains the Actor's real, buildable TypeScript source (src/) — there is no proprietary logic held back from GitHub. To work on it locally:

git clone https://github.com/stefanoseggio/pba-tenders-monitor.git
cd pba-tenders-monitor
npm install

# Run against the real pbac.cgp.gba.gov.ar portal, Apify-CLI style:
apify login          # one-time, needs an Apify account
apify run             # runs src/main.ts via the Apify SDK's local dev flow

# Or run the TypeScript entrypoint directly:
npm run start:dev     # tsx src/main.ts

# Build, lint and test before opening a PR:
npm run build          # tsc
npm run lint
npm test               # vitest run (mocked fixtures)

Source layout: src/main.ts (Actor entrypoint), src/routes.ts (Crawlee route handlers for the three PBAC grids), src/parsers/ (Cheerio HTML parsing per grid), src/delta.ts (event classification: NEW_LISTING/STATUS_CHANGE/UPDATED/CLOSED), src/fingerprint.ts (sha1 contentHash), src/dateFilter.ts (dateRange filtering), src/state.ts (named key-value delta store), src/types.ts (shared types). Real unit tests live in test/ with fixture-based coverage for parsing, delta classification and the Actor entrypoint.

Bug reports and feature requests are handled through the Apify Store Issues tab for this Actor (see Known limitations above) rather than GitHub Issues, since that is where paying users of the published Actor already are — but pull requests against this repository are welcome.

License

The source code in this repository is licensed under the LICENSE.

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