GovCon API — MCP Server

53 tools spanning the federal contracting lifecycle (market research, opportunity discovery, capture and teaming, bid and proposal, award and compliance) inside Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Zed, or any local MCP-compatible client.

Ask in natural language:

"Find DoD cybersecurity solicitations posted this month over $1M."

"Who are the entrenched incumbents in NAICS 541512, and how competitive is the market?"

"Has Acme Corp ever been excluded from federal contracts?"

"Is this contract entering recompete, and is the incumbent's set-aside cert expiring?"

Powered by GovCon API — federal procurement data (SAM.gov, FPDS/USAspending, FFATA subawards, GSA wage determinations, SBA DSBS), compiled, cleaned, and cross-linked on the identifiers it shares.

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Install

The simplest path (works on macOS, Linux, Windows):

pipx install govconapi-mcp

(pipx installs the binary to a system-friendly location like ~/.local/bin so Claude Desktop's sandbox can spawn it. If you don't have pipx, install it with brew install pipx on macOS, pip install --user pipx elsewhere.)

Alternatively, with uv:

uvx --from govconapi-mcp govconapi-mcp

You'll need:

• Python 3.10+
• A GovCon API key — free 14-day trial, no credit card

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Configure Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop config file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "govconapi": {
      "command": "govconapi-mcp",
      "env": {
        "GOVCONAPI_KEY": "gca_your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. You'll see the GovCon tools appear in the tool picker.

For Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Zed, and custom Python agents, see the full install reference.

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Tools

53 tools, organized by GovCon lifecycle stage, not by API module — you shouldn't have to know our internal routing to know which tool answers your question. 13 are marked Pro: they return a 402 on the Developer plan. 4 more work on Developer, noted below where specific fields or filters are Pro-only. See the full tool reference for every parameter.

Market Research (12 tools) — where does this NAICS get bought, by whom, how competitive is it, what's coming

Tool	What it does
find_naics_codes	Discover NAICS codes by federal spending and small-business set-aside leverage
get_naics_leaderboard	Browse curated, ranked NAICS market leaderboards
get_naics_market	One NAICS code's market profile: spending, competition, top buyers and incumbents
get_naics_positioning	A NAICS code's solicitation-side language and set-aside makeup
get_naics_simplified_acquisition	Award-value breakdown for a NAICS code over the last 12 months
get_naics_competition	How contested a NAICS market is: offers per award, single-bidder share
discover_offices	Which contracting offices buy a NAICS code, ranked by win-facts
get_office_profile	One contracting office's full buying profile across every NAICS
list_organizations	Search the federal agency organization tree
get_organization	One federal organization's full record, with parent and children
get_org_relationships	An organization's immediate children or ancestor chain
search_forecasts	Agency procurement forecasts; incumbent_award block + contact fields are Pro-only

Opportunity Discovery (4 tools) — what's live right now that matches my capability

Tool	What it does
search_opportunities	Search federal contract opportunities (SAM.gov) with 15+ filters
get_opportunity	Fetch one opportunity's full record by notice_id
recent_changes	Incremental sync of opportunities added or updated since a timestamp
lookup_agency	Resolve an agency acronym or partial name to the canonical SAM.gov string

Capture & Teaming (12 tools) — who's already winning here, who could I team with, who do I call

Tool	What it does
search_companies (Pro)	Search companies that have won at least one federal award
get_company_profile (Pro)	One company's aggregate profile: SAM registration plus award totals
get_company_awards (Pro)	Full paginated award history for one company
get_company_peers (Pro)	Companies similar to this one by NAICS and agency overlap
search_entities	Search all SAM-registered entities; naics/state/business_type filters are Pro-only
get_entities_expiring (Pro)	SAM registrations expiring within N days
get_entity	One SAM entity's full registration record, by UEI or CAGE code
search_partners (Pro)	Find teaming and partner firms by real past performance
get_company_contact (Pro)	Resolve a vendor's real decision-maker contact
search_contacts (Pro)	Look up a contracting officer's contact info, the buyer side
search_recompetes (Pro)	Contracts entering recompete within a chosen window
get_recompete (Pro)	One recompeting contract by PIID, plus incumbent-vulnerability signals

Bid & Proposal / Negotiate (10 tools) — what should this cost, what's the labor rate, is my team clean

Tool	What it does
get_price_benchmark	Percentile distribution of comparable contract value for a NAICS
get_price_position	Where your specific bid value sits against real comparables
get_labor_rate_benchmark	Awarded labor-rate benchmark for a labor category, from GSA CALC
search_wage_determinations	Search Davis-Bacon (DBA), Service Contract Act (SCA), and CBA wage determinations
get_wds_by_location	Which wage determinations apply in a given state and county
get_wage_rates	Prevailing-wage rates across wage determinations, by occupation
get_wage_rate_summary	The labor-cost floor for one occupation, aggregated across wage determinations
get_wage_determination	One wage determination's full record: locations and classification rates
get_vendor_risk_report (Pro)	A 7-signal vendor risk report for one UEI
check_exclusion	Check the SAM.gov exclusions list; extra detail fields are Pro-only

Award & Compliance (15 tools) — who won, what are the terms, was it challenged

Tool	What it does
search_contracts	Search FPDS prime contract transactions, the comprehensive award record
get_contract	One contract's latest transaction plus its roll-up; subaward_rollup is Pro-only
get_contract_modifications	Every transaction row for a contract, the full modification trail
get_contract_vehicle	The vehicle (IDIQ, GWAC, FSS, or BPA) an order was placed against
search_vehicles	Search contract vehicles: IDIQs, GWACs, FSS schedules, BPAs, BOAs
get_vehicle	One vehicle's detail: ceiling, period, and what's been ordered through it
get_vehicle_holders (Pro)	Who holds a vehicle and who's actually earning through it
search_subawards	Search FFATA subawards: who primes paid as subcontractors
get_subaward	One FFATA subaward report by its SAM report ID
get_prime_subawards	Every subaward a company paid out as a prime
get_prime_relationships	Every prime that has paid this company as a subcontractor
search_protests	Search GAO bid protests: who protested, on what, and the outcome
get_protests_on_solicitation (Pro)	Every protest filed on one solicitation
search_awards	Search SAM Award Notices, a sparse, self-reported slice, distinct from search_contracts
resolve_identifier	Resolve between legacy DUNS and current UEI

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Example prompts

• "Search for HUBZone-set-aside opportunities in NAICS 541330 posted after April 1."
• "Who are the top incumbents in NAICS 541512, and is any of them close to a set-aside cert expiration?"
• "Has [vendor name] ever appeared on the exclusions list, and what's their vendor risk profile?"
• "What's the labor-rate benchmark for a Senior Software Engineer on a small-business contract?"
• "What's changed in the federal contracts dataset since 2026-04-12?"

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Plan limits

• Free Trial: 25 requests/day for 14 days
• Developer ($19/mo): 1,000 requests/hour, all filters, CSV export
• Pro ($79/mo): Everything in Developer, plus the 13 tools marked Pro above, plus richer data on 4 more (noted inline where a specific field or filter needs Pro)

See govconapi.com/pricing and the full tool reference for exactly which tools need which plan.

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Troubleshooting

"GOVCONAPI_KEY environment variable is not set" Add the env var to your Claude Desktop MCP config (see above) and restart Claude.

"Invalid API key" Get a new one at govconapi.com — keys start with gca_.

"At least one filter required" The search_opportunities tool requires at least one filter (naics, keywords, state, etc.). If you want a bulk dump, use recent_changes instead.

Rate limited (429) Free trial: 25 calls/day. Developer: 1,000/hour. Wait or upgrade.

"Company Intelligence requires Pro" / similar 402 That tool is Pro-only — see the Plan limits section above, or the full tool reference for exactly which ones.

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License

MIT

Support

support@govconapi.com