{
  "markdown": "# USAspending — Federal Contract & Grant Awards\n\nThe U.S. Treasury's USAspending.gov data on federal awards: contracts, grants, loans, and direct payments. Every dollar the federal government has awarded since 2008 (with patchier coverage going back to 2001), broken down by recipient, agency, sub-agency, NAICS code, and place of performance. Free, no auth.\n\nPart of [Pipeworx](https://pipeworx.io) — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1476+ live data sources.\n\n## Why this matters for AI agents\n\nWhere [SAM.gov](/docs/reference/samgov) is *opportunities* (what the government is buying), USAspending is *awards* (what was actually contracted). For competitive intelligence, lobbying-spend ROI analysis, federal vendor research, or following the money on policy areas, this is the source of truth.\n\nCommon flows:\n\n- **\"How much has X received in federal contracts?\"** → `get_federal_spending({recipient: \"X\"})` → award totals by year, agency.\n- **\"Who are the top contractors for the DoD?\"** → spend search filtered by agency.\n- **\"Federal investment in AI / cybersecurity / clean energy?\"** → keyword + NAICS / PSC code search.\n\nUsed by the `govcon_contractor_profile` and `lobbying_activity` recipes.\n\n## Auth\n\nNone. USAspending is fully public, free.\n\n## Award classes\n\n| Class | What it is |\n|---|---|\n| Contracts (FPDS-NG) | Direct procurement; competitive or sole-source |\n| Grants | Discretionary or formula awards (research, state grants) |\n| Loans | Federal credit programs (SBA, USDA, Education) |\n| Direct payments | Social Security, veterans benefits, etc. |\n| IDV (Indefinite Delivery Vehicles) | Master contracts; orders flow against them |\n\nFor company-level analysis, contracts are usually what matters. Grants matter for universities and nonprofits.\n\n## Common pitfalls\n\n- **Recipient name normalization.** \"Lockheed Martin Corporation,\" \"LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP,\" \"Lockheed Martin\" all appear in the data. Aggregate case-insensitively after stripping legal suffixes for clean totals.\n- **Parent vs subsidiary.** A large company has many subsidiaries, each with separate UEIs. USAspending includes parent-recipient hierarchy fields — use them for true company-level totals.\n- **Obligated vs outlayed dollars.** \"Obligated\" is what the government committed; \"outlayed\" is what's actually been paid. The gap can be years for multi-year contracts.\n- **NAICS codes for \"we sell IT services.\"** A single contractor can have dozens of NAICS designations. Filtering by NAICS gets you only the awards classified that way; cross-NAICS analysis needs careful aggregation.\n- **Lag.** Most awards appear within 30 days of obligation. The very-most-recent quarter is incomplete and revises upward.\n- **Unique award IDs.** Awards have stable IDs (PIIDs for contracts, FAINs for grants). Use these for citation; recipient-level totals are the rolled-up view.\n\n## Quick Start\n\nAdd to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):\n\n```json\n{\n  \"mcpServers\": {\n    \"usaspending\": {\n      \"url\": \"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/usaspending/mcp\"\n    }\n  }\n}\n```\n\n### What this endpoint actually serves\n\n`tools/list` at `https://gateway.pipeworx.io/usaspending/mcp` returns the tools in the table\nabove **plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools** — `ask_pipeworx`,\n`discover_tools`, `search_within`, `remember`/`recall` and the rest of the\ngateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a\nsingle-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the\npack's own. The connection's `initialize` response states its exact scope, and\nis the authoritative answer for a given day.\n\nThis is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a\nscoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via\n`ask_pipeworx`, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a\nsecond MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without\nthem; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth,\nconnect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.\n\nOr connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed\ndirectly, instead of just this one's:\n\n```json\n{\n  \"mcpServers\": {\n    \"pipeworx\": {\n      \"url\": \"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp\"\n    }\n  }\n}\n```\n\nBoth URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1476+ data sources. The\nonly difference is which pack's tools are listed **directly**; `ask_pipeworx`\nreaches all of them from either one.\n\n## Using with ask_pipeworx\n\nInstead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English —\nthis works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:\n\n```\nask_pipeworx({ question: \"your question about Usaspending data\" })\n```\n\nThe gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.\n\n## More\n\n- [Docs and guides](https://pipeworx.io/docs)\n- [pipeworx.io](https://pipeworx.io)\n\n## License\n\nMIT\n",
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