Federal contract awards, available to an agent
The Bot Wire exposes new US federal contract awards as an agent-callable wire. Ask it who just won a contract, for how much, from which agency and where, with small business set-asides ranked first. Free through the remote MCP server with no wallet, or $0.01 per call over HTTP with x402.
/mcp. Nothing here needs an API key or a signup.
Award data is public but awkward for a model to reach: the source is a POST-only JSON search endpoint with filter codes you have to know, and the date fields do not mean what their names suggest. This wire does that translation once.
Connecting it
The remote MCP server needs no install, no API key and no wallet. Every wire answers on the free preview tier:
claude mcp add --transport http botwire https://thebotwire.com/mcp
Then ask the agent directly: *"which small businesses won federal contracts this week?"* It routes to the contracts wire on its own, because each wire advertises the question it answers rather than a product name.
For plain HTTP, with no MCP client involved:
# free preview, top 3, no payment curl "https://thebotwire.com/contracts/preview?since=14d" # filter to small business set-asides curl "https://thebotwire.com/contracts/preview?size=small-business&since=14d" # search the descriptions curl "https://thebotwire.com/contracts/preview?q=cybersecurity&since=14d"
Parameters
| Parameter | Values | Notes |
|---|---|---|
q | keywords | Ranked keyword search, not semantic. Use distinctive terms. |
size | small-business, under-250k, 250k-1m, 1m-10m, over-10m | Set-aside status or dollar band |
since | 24h, 3d, 14d, 30d | Defaults to 14d. Awards post over days, not seconds. |
limit | 1 to 50 | Paid route only; preview is capped at 3 |
Each result carries the winner, the amount, the awarding agency, the place of performance, the contract description, an age_minutes figure and a link to the award record on USASpending so any claim is checkable.
What it is good for
Sales triggers. A company that just won a contract has a signed obligation to deliver and usually waits 30 days or more to be paid, while funding payroll and materials up front. Lenders, brokers, staffing firms and suppliers all sell into that gap, and the trigger is public the day it posts.
Competitive intelligence. Recompetes are visible. So is which agency a rival is winning inside, and at what size.
Subcontracting. Primes that just won large awards are the ones assembling teams that month.
What it is not
It does not carry solicitations or pre-award notices, which live on SAM.gov, and it is not real time: contract actions reach the public record within days of signature, so anyone advertising instant federal award data is describing something else. It also returns businesses and public award facts only, with no personal, credit or contact data attached. See the guide to finding award data directly if you would rather query the source yourself.
FAQ
Do I need a wallet or an API key to try this?
No. The remote MCP server and every /preview endpoint are free and unauthenticated. A wallet is only needed for the full paid result set at $0.01 per call, which uses x402 pay-per-call.
How is this different from calling USASpending directly?
You can call USASpending directly and should if you want raw control. This wire adds continuous polling, deduplication across runs, ranked keyword search, the set-aside filtering that separates real small businesses from primes, and it resolves the date-field trap that otherwise makes recency sorting wrong.
How fresh is the data?
Awards appear within days of the contract action, which is as fast as the federal record itself moves. Live counts and the last poll time are public at /health.
Can an agent use this without me writing payment code?
Yes. Point any MCP client at the remote endpoint and every wire answers on the free tier. The docs cover adding a funded Base wallet only if you want full result sets.
Sources
Underlying award records come from USASpending.gov, published by the US Treasury as a US Government work.
Related: How to find the newest federal contract awards · How do I connect an MCP server to Claude Desktop? · What is a small business set-aside contract? · How do I find subcontracting opportunities after a prime wins?