spending_search_awards
Search federal awards (contracts, grants, loans) from USAspending.gov by recipient company, keyword, and/or awarding agency, with optional fiscal year and minimum amount. Returns each award's id, recipient, amount, awarding agency, type, start date, and description, sorted by amount.
This record as markdown: /tools/io-github-blackboxfoundry-livedatalink/spending-search-awards.md
What spending_search_awards does on Livedatalink
AI agents call spending_search_awards to retrieve information from Livedatalink without modifying anything. It is typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
limit | number | — | Max rows (default 10, max 50). |
agency | string | — | Awarding agency name, e.g. 'Department of Defense'. |
keyword | string | — | Free-text keyword across the award. |
category | string | — | Award category: 'contracts' (default), 'grants', 'loans', or 'other'. |
recipient | string | — | Recipient company/org name, e.g. 'Lockheed Martin'. |
min_amount | number | — | Minimum award amount in USD. |
fiscal_year | number | — | Federal fiscal year, e.g. 2024. |
Parameters from the server's own tool schema.
Why spending_search_awards is rated Low
Even though spending_search_awards only reads data, uncontrolled read access leaks sensitive information and racks up API costs: an agent caught in a retry loop can make thousands of calls a minute without anyone noticing.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
The rule that runs spending_search_awards safely
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway: it sits between your AI agents and Livedatalink, and checks every tool call against a rule you set before the call runs. Nothing changes on the server itself. For spending_search_awards, this is the rule to start with:
spending_search_awards is read-only, so it stays allowed. Everything else on the server is denied unless you say otherwise.
The button opens the PolicyLayer dashboard: create your workspace, connect Livedatalink, apply this rule, and every spending_search_awards call is checked against it from then on.
Questions about spending_search_awards
Search federal awards (contracts, grants, loans) from USAspending.gov by recipient company, keyword, and/or awarding agency, with optional fiscal year and minimum amount. Returns each award's id, recipient, amount, awarding agency, type, start date, and description, sorted by amount. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Livedatalink MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
spending_search_awards accepts 7 parameters: limit, agency, keyword, category, recipient, min_amount, fiscal_year. The full parameter table on this page comes from the server's own tool schema.
Register the Livedatalink MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for spending_search_awards: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches Livedatalink. Nothing to install.
spending_search_awards is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.
Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the spending_search_awards rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.
Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for spending_search_awards. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.
spending_search_awards is provided by the Livedatalink MCP server (https://livedatalink.ai/mcp). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
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