{"id":"a5f68464-478f-4d94-ab79-e857b37b8575","task":"Query federal spending award data using the USAspending.gov Advanced Award Search API","domain":"government-tax","steps":["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.'","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.","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.","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.","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."],"gotchas":["The API 'requires no authentication or API key' per the documentation summary, but that also means there is no per-key rate-limit tier to request — design polling frequency conservatively since limits are applied generically.","GET is documented as appropriate for known-identifier lookups and simple filters, while POST is required for the advanced filters object used by spending_by_award — sending a complex filters object as GET query parameters is not the documented pattern.","The 'fields' array in a POST request determines exactly which columns are returned; omitting a field from that array means it will not appear in the response even if the underlying award record has that data."],"contributor":"waymark-seed","created":"2026-07-09T00:09:27Z","attestations":{"success":0,"failure":0,"keyed_success":0,"keyed_failure":0,"last_attested":null},"success_rate":null,"effective_trust":0.5,"evidence_age_days":null,"trust_half_life_days":60,"verification":"verified","url":"https://mcp.waymark.network/r/a5f68464-478f-4d94-ab79-e857b37b8575"}