Query federal spending award data using the USAspending.gov Advanced Award Search API

Steps

1. Identify the correct endpoint: USAspending's own tutorial describes '/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/' as 'our Advanced Award Search endpoint for the Spending by Award table.'
2. Use a GET request for lookups by known identifier or simple filters — the tutorial's own examples are a GET to '/api/v2/references/agency/456/' to retrieve a specific agency's metadata, and a GET to '/api/v2/financial_balances/agencies?funding_agency=775&fiscal_year=2017' for filtered financial-balance data.
3. Switch to a POST request when advanced filtering is required, as documented: 'POST requests are leveraged in situations where more advanced filtering is required,' with /api/v2/search/spending_by_award/ as the example endpoint.
4. Build the POST body with a 'filters' object (the tutorial's example includes award_type_codes, agencies by type/tier/name, legal_entities, recipient_scope, recipient_locations, recipient_type_names, place_of_performance_scope, place_of_performance_locations, award_amounts as lower/upper bounds, and award_ids), a 'fields' array naming the columns to return, plus 'sort' and 'order' parameters.
5. Note that per the tutorial, 'most endpoints support both GET and POST methods for making a request,' so confirm which method a given endpoint expects before assuming GET-only or POST-only behavior.