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Civic AI aggregates public procurement data from federal systems and state/local portals. This page describes the major source categories and how we use them.

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Federal sources

SourceData typeUpdate cadence
SAM.govActive solicitations, entity registration contextDaily
USAspending.govFederal contract and grant awardsDaily
FPDS (via USAspending)Historical federal procurement transactionsDaily
Federal solicitations on SAM.gov are the system of record for most prime federal opportunities. USAspending provides authoritative award and obligation data for competitive research.

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State and local sources

State, local, education, and special-district procurement is published across hundreds of portals. Civic AI runs dedicated ingestion pipelines for many of these systems, including:
  • Statewide eProcurement platforms
  • City and county bid boards
  • Public utility and transit agency posting sites
  • Cooperative purchasing networks
  • Public notice aggregators (where used as primary sources)
Coverage expands as new pipelines ship. Portals differ in fields available — some publish full RFP PDFs, others only title and deadline.

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What Civic AI adds

Raw portal data is hard to search consistently. Civic AI normalizes records so you can:
  • Search across sources in plain English
  • See deadlines, agencies, and set-asides on unified result cards
  • Link back to the official posting for submission
  • Connect solicitations to award history for the same buyers and vendors

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Open data access

Developers can access public procurement data through our open-source client:

civiccontracts-data on GitHub

Python and TypeScript client for Civic AI open data APIs.
See API overview for product API documentation as endpoints become available.

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Accuracy and limitations

Always verify final requirements on the official source before bidding. Civic AI reflects public data as published; amendments, cancellations, and corrections may lag the portal by hours.
  • Not legal advice — eligibility, set-asides, and compliance require your own review
  • Incomplete fields — some local portals publish minimal metadata
  • Subcontract data — prime awards are well covered; sub-tier visibility varies