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Connector · Federal spending data

USAspending.gov MCP Server & Agent Skill

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ibl.ai publishes a free USAspending.gov agent skill: a SKILL.md that teaches an AI agent to read USAspending.gov data and expose it as an MCP tool. Download it, connect your own USAspending.gov credentials, and run the agent on ibl.ai Agentic OS, where you own all the code and the data.

USAspending.gov is the official source of U.S. federal spending data under FFATA and the DATA Act: contracts, grants, loans and other awards, recipients, agencies, federal accounts and subawards.

What is the USAspending.gov API, and what can an agent read from it?

Award search and counts with complex filters, award detail and funding, recipient profiles, agency overviews, spending by category and geography, autocomplete lookups, and bulk CSV downloads.

  • API: USAspending API (v2) (REST)
  • Access: Public, self-serve
  • Base URL: https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/
  • Authentication: None required

The documentation states endpoints do not currently require any authorization. No key or registration is needed.

Endpoints are open. Single records with a known ID use GET; filtered searches use POST with a JSON body.

What can an agent read from USAspending.gov?

  • Award search — POST /api/v2/search/spending_by_award/ with filters; award_type_codes is required. Paged with page and limit; response has page_metadata.hasNext.
  • Award detail — GET /api/v2/awards/{award_id}/ and /api/v2/awards/funding for federal account funding.
  • Recipients — /api/v2/recipient/ lists recipients; /api/v2/recipient/{hash}/ returns a profile.
  • Agencies — GET /api/v2/agency/{toptier_code}/ and /api/v2/references/toptier_agencies/.
  • Spending breakdowns — POST /api/v2/search/spending_by_category/ and /spending_by_geography/.
  • Bulk download — POST /api/v2/bulk_download/awards/ queues a CSV; check /api/v2/bulk_download/status/.

What can an agent write to USAspending.gov?

This skill only reads USAspending.gov data; it documents no write calls, so an agent built on it cannot change a USAspending.gov record.

Limits: No rate limits are documented. Award search returns 10 results by default and pages with page; page_metadata.hasNext signals more results.

Public data released under FFATA and the DATA Act. Recipient names and locations are published; Dun & Bradstreet-derived fields carry a permissible-use limitation.

How do I connect USAspending.gov to an AI agent over MCP?

As of October 2026 we found no MCP server published by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service itself.

The practical path is to host a small MCP server that wraps the USAspending API (v2), or to give the agent the calls directly with the SKILL.md below.

On ibl.ai an MCP connection is three records, and a working integration always needs all three:

  1. Register the server — POST …/mcp-servers/ with its URL, a transport (sse, websocket or streamable_http) and an auth_type of none, token or oauth2.
  2. Create a connection that holds the credential, scoped to the whole organization (platform), to a single agent, or to each user (user).
  3. Enable it on the agent — mcp-tool in tool_slugs and the server id in mcp_servers. Both lists are replaced, not merged, so read the settings first.

For an API key or a service credential, one token connection at platform scope serves the whole organization; scope a connection to a single agent when that agent needs narrower access than the rest.

The field reference is in MCP server connections, and the /iblai-api-agent-mcp skill runs all three steps from a coding agent.

What does the USAspending.gov agent skill do?

The USAspending.gov skill is one SKILL.md file named iblai-connect-usaspending. It gives an agent the auth conventions, what to read, which writes need a person's confirmation, the ibl.ai MCP wiring, example prompts and guardrails.

Download the USAspending.gov SKILL.md

Save it as .claude/skills/iblai-connect-usaspending/SKILL.md, or in your agent's skills folder. The ibl.ai platform skills it calls come from one install:

$ npx skills add iblai/vibe --all

This connector skill is a starting point maintained on ibl.ai, not part of the iblai/vibe repository.

It was checked against the Bureau of the Fiscal Service's documentation on October 20, 2026. Test it against your own USAspending.gov setup before you rely on it.

What can I ask a USAspending.gov agent to do?

  • “Total federal grant dollars awarded to Ohio recipients in fiscal year 2025”
  • “List the 20 largest DoD contracts awarded last quarter”
  • “Show all awards to recipient UEI ABC123DEF456 since 2022”
  • “Break down NASA obligations by state for this fiscal year”

How do I run a USAspending.gov agent on ibl.ai?

Agentic OS is where the agent runs on ibl.ai: it holds the USAspending.gov MCP connection, the model the agent uses, its instructions and its conversation history.

On ibl.ai you own all the code and the data, run it model-agnostic across any LLM, and pay with no per-seat pricing — so you can deploy anywhere, from your own cloud to a fully air-gapped network.

Which ibl.ai agents work with USAspending.gov data?

Which ibl.ai platform skills does a USAspending.gov agent use?

What else should I know before connecting USAspending.gov to an AI agent?

Is there an official USAspending.gov MCP server?

Not that we found as of October 20, 2026: the Bureau of the Fiscal Service documents the USAspending API (v2), not an MCP server of its own.

The SKILL.md on this page gives an agent the integration directly, and any MCP server you host can be registered on ibl.ai.

Who can get USAspending.gov API credentials?

The documentation states endpoints do not currently require any authorization. No key or registration is needed.

Does USAspending.gov data leave my infrastructure when an ibl.ai agent uses it?

On ibl.ai, you own all the code and the data. Self-hosted in your cloud or data center, the agent, its MCP connections and its conversation logs stay inside your perimeter.

Because the platform is model-agnostic, you can point the agent at a model you host, so USAspending.gov records need not reach a third-party model provider.

Is the USAspending.gov agent skill free to use?

Yes. The SKILL.md is a free download with no sign-up. It assumes you already have USAspending.gov credentials, and your agreement with the Bureau of the Fiscal Service still governs how you use its API.

Which other data sources can an AI agent connect to alongside USAspending.gov?

Which other Government systems have a connector?

Every connector, grouped by sector, is on the connectors hub.