# MakeGov

> MakeGov, Inc. builds Tango, a unified API for U.S. federal procurement and assistance data — contracts, IDVs, OTAs, entities, opportunities, forecasts, grants, protests, exclusions, and more, behind a single API key.

This is the marketing site for Tango. For API reference, SDKs, webhooks, and machine-readable docs, start with the Tango documentation llms.txt — it is the primary resource for coding agents integrating against the API.

## Product

- [Tango](https://www.makegov.com/): what Tango unifies and why it exists.
- [About MakeGov](https://www.makegov.com/about.html): the team behind Tango.
- [Tango in Claude, ChatGPT & coding agents](https://www.makegov.com/mcp.html): one-click connector installs and example prompts.
- [Tango documentation llms.txt](https://docs.makegov.com/llms.txt): full API reference, SDKs, webhooks, and guides, structured for LLM consumption.
- [Tango OpenAPI spec (JSON)](https://tango.dev/api/openapi.json): the complete machine-readable API contract.

## Blog

Technical notes on federal procurement data and the Tango API, newest first.

- [Blog index](https://www.makegov.com/blog/): all posts, paginated.
- [Some Reasons Scraping Federal Procurement Data Goes Wrong](https://www.makegov.com/blog/scraping-federal-procurement-data.html): Coding agents make it easy to build your own pipeline on SAM.gov and USAspending, and sometimes that's a fine idea. Here are two real records that show where it gets hard, and the case for spending your time and tokens on what you build on top of the data.
- [From a SAM.gov Opportunity to the Federal Register in One Query](https://www.makegov.com/blog/federal-register-by-agency.html): Every SAM.gov opportunity carries an agency code, and the Federal Register has never heard of it. Tango lets you search the Federal Register with the code you already have, so you can see the rules an agency is writing next to what it is buying.
- [New in Tango: State and Local Bids, the Federal Register, Contract Appeals, and More](https://www.makegov.com/blog/new-datasets-august-september-2026.html): In August and September Tango added state and local solicitations, the Federal Register back to 1994, CBCA and ASBCA contract appeal decisions, GSA eBuy requests, Court of Federal Claims protests from PACER, Education and SEC forecasts, SBA Mentor-Protégé relationships, and employee counts and hiring footprints for companies, all behind the same API.
- [What Federal Procurement Data Costs in Tokens](https://www.makegov.com/blog/token-cost-federal-apis.html): Reading one fiscal year of federal contract awards into an LLM costs about $9,400 from the raw USASpending API vs about $3,600 from Tango — the same records, ~2.6x fewer tokens. Here's the benchmark, why the raw payload is so heavy, and how to check it yourself with ttok.
- [Build With Tango: From polling to webhooks](https://www.makegov.com/blog/from-polling-to-webhooks.html): Most Tango integrations start with a polling loop. Webhooks now replace it with push delivery and server-side filtering — same filters, no cron, ~80 lines of FastAPI.
- [Build With Tango: A solicitation pipeline, not a rear-view mirror](https://www.makegov.com/blog/budget-pipeline-net-new.html): USASpending tells you what already got awarded. Filter the budget endpoint on contract share, next-year growth, and unobligated headroom — and one call returns a forward-looking watchlist of accounts about to buy.
- [Build With Tango: Reconstruct a program from its budget](https://www.makegov.com/blog/budget-money-map.html): The budget endpoint's recipients and budget-flows surfaces let you go from an account to its vendors and back again. Here's how to reconstruct a program — and an incumbent's exposure — from the money.
- [Build With Tango: Which agency accounts are actually worth your attention](https://www.makegov.com/blog/budget-contractability-score.html): One field on the budget endpoint, contract_share_of_obligated, separates buying accounts from transfer programs. Here's how to rank an agency's accounts and find the few worth chasing.
- [Announcing the Budget Endpoint](https://www.makegov.com/blog/budget-endpoint.html): Budget data is now on Tango. One row per federal account per fiscal year — the full lifecycle from request to outlay, the contract vs. grant split, and a drill-down to the vendors behind the money.
- [Mapping an Agency's Recompete Pipeline in Three API Calls](https://www.makegov.com/blog/recompete-pipeline.html): Predicting an agency's next vehicle award means knowing which of its in-house IDIQs are about to expire — and whether the recompete is already on SAM.gov. Three Tango API calls map it out.
- [OASIS, Alliant, T4NG: How to Research Government Vehicles with an API](https://www.makegov.com/blog/researching-vehicles.html): Most people search for contracts. But the biggest federal spend flows through vehicles like OASIS, Alliant, and T4NG. Here's how to research them with the Tango API.
- [Federal IT Investments Just Got an API](https://www.makegov.com/blog/federal-it-investments-api.html): The federal IT Dashboard tracks thousands of federal IT investments — risk ratings, funding, performance, contracts. We just made it queryable through Tango's API, SDK, and MCP server.
- [How We Taught Claude to Analyze any Federal Agency's Procurement Behavior](https://www.makegov.com/blog/tango-skills-agency-analysis.html): The first time took a while and some back and forth. The second time took two prompts. By the third, we did it live on camera just to prove it works. Here's how Claude skills and Tango turn one-off research into a repeatable capability.
- [Your AI Just Made That Up: How Tango Gives LLMs Ground Truth for GovCon](https://www.makegov.com/blog/tango-llm-ground-truth.html): We asked an AI the same govcon question with and without Tango. Without structured data, the answer was confident, coherent, and wrong. With Tango, it was specific, sourced, and correct.
- [Tango: What We're Building and Why](https://www.makegov.com/blog/what-were-building.html): We started Tango because we lived the problem of wrangling federal procurement data. Now we're building the infrastructure layer so you don't have to.
- [Tango Now Tracks Procurement Forecasts from 11 Federal Agencies](https://www.makegov.com/blog/forecasts-11-agencies.html): Tango now ingests procurement forecasts from 11 federal agencies into a single, normalized API. Query one endpoint, filter by agency and NAICS, and use webhooks for real-time forecast alerts.
- [Announcing the Protests Endpoint](https://www.makegov.com/blog/protests-endpoint.html): Bid protest data is now on Tango. List and detail endpoints, filtering by outcome and agency, optional docket expansion, and response shaping—all in one API.
- [GSA eLibrary Enrichment on IDVs — See Which SINs Are Available](https://www.makegov.com/blog/gsa-elibrary-idv-sins.html): IDV list and detail responses include best-effort GSA eLibrary enrichment: schedule, contract number, SINs, and file URLs. Use the Tango API to see which SINs are available without hitting eLibrary separately.
- [Provenance and Auditing — How Tango Keeps Data Consistent](https://www.makegov.com/blog/provenance.html): Tango tracks field provenance and row-level change logs so we know which source updated what and when—keeping data consistent across SAM.gov, USAspending, FPDS, and agency feeds.
- [Why Use the Tango Python and Node SDKs](https://www.makegov.com/blog/tango-sdks-python-node.html): The official tango-python and tango-node SDKs handle auth, pagination, errors, and response shaping so you get full type safety and less boilerplate. Same API, two languages.
- [The Value of Response Shaping](https://www.makegov.com/blog/response-shaping-value.html): Response shaping is requesting only the fields you need. Pass shape via REST (query param) or the SDKs. Often 60–80% smaller payloads so you spend less on bandwidth, parsing, and tokens.
- [Understanding Contracts, IDVs, and Vehicles in Federal Procurement Data](https://www.makegov.com/blog/contracts-idvs-vehicles.html): Navigating the relationships between Contracts, IDVs, and Vehicles in federal procurement data can be confusing. Here's a clear guide to understanding these concepts and when to use each Tango API endpoint.

## Optional

- [FAQ](https://www.makegov.com/faq.html): common questions about Tango.
- [GOV422](https://www.makegov.com/gov422/): stories about errors in federal procurement data — narrative, not API reference material.
- [GOV422 #0005: A $39 Trillion Antenna](https://www.makegov.com/gov422/0005-a-39-trillion-antenna.html): A SAM.gov subcontract report puts a single C-band radar antenna at over $39T.
- [GOV422 #0004: A Quintillion-Dollar Amendment](https://www.makegov.com/gov422/0004-a-quintillion-dollar-amendment.html): A CDBG subaward to the Town of Van Buren, Maine, was amended from $350,000 to $1 quintillion. That's roughly 10,000 times global GDP for a town of 1,900 people.
- [GOV422 #0003: 999 Offers for a Cable Tray](https://www.makegov.com/gov422/0003-999-offers-for-a-cable-tray.html): A $325 GSA delivery order for a cable management tray lists 999 offers received. The government uses 999 as a placeholder value.
- [GOV422 #0002: The Eternal Protest](https://www.makegov.com/gov422/0002-the-eternal-protest.html): A GAO bid protest filed in 2020 with a 100-day due date is still listed as open six years later.
- [GOV422 #0001: Time Travel in Forecasts](https://www.makegov.com/gov422/0001-time-travel-in-forecasts.html): A federal forecast has a period of performance starting in the year 0226 AD. The fiscal year calculated to FY 227.
- [Privacy policy](https://www.makegov.com/privacy.html): what we collect and how long we keep it.