NYC Contracting Explorer

A comprehensive platform for exploring New York City's procurement data, including vendor information, contracts, solicitations, and spending analysis. Features an AI-powered chatbot and MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for use with Claude Desktop.

Features

• 🔍 Contract Search - Search 55,000+ NYC contracts by agency, vendor, or keyword
• 🏢 Vendor Directory - Browse 34,000+ registered vendors with certification data
• 📋 Solicitation Tracker - Monitor open and closed procurement opportunities
• 💰 Spending Analysis - Analyze 147M+ transactions from Checkbook NYC
• 🤖 AI Chatbot - Natural language queries powered by Google Gemini
• 🔌 MCP Server - Claude Desktop integration for AI-assisted analysis

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• pip

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/wegovnyc/nyc-contracting-explorer.git
cd nyc-contracting-explorer

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Run the web application
python app.py

Visit http://localhost:5000 to access the explorer.

Claude Desktop Integration

Add this to your Claude Desktop config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "nyc-contracts": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://oce.wegov.nyc/mcp/mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Restart Claude Desktop, then ask questions like:

• "How many contracts did Parks have in 2023?"
• "Show me vendor certification statistics"
• "What are the top IT vendors for the city?"

MCP Tools Available

Statistics & Aggregation

Tool	Description
get_database_overview	Complete summary of all procurement data
get_contract_stats	Count contracts by agency and/or fiscal year
get_agency_contracts	Agency summary with top vendors
get_vendor_stats	Vendor breakdown by certification type
get_solicitation_stats	Solicitation trends by status and method
get_yearly_trends	Year-over-year procurement trends

Search Tools

Tool	Description
search_vendors	Find vendors by name
search_contracts	Search contracts by agency, vendor, status
search_solicitations	Find solicitations by status or agency

Spending Data

Tool	Description
get_spending_by_year	Checkbook NYC spending by fiscal year
get_vendor_spending	Spending history for specific vendor

Public Data Access

The spending data is available in a public S3 bucket for direct analysis:

Bucket: s3://nyc-databook-spending

Access Methods

1. AWS CLI (no credentials needed):

   aws s3 ls s3://nyc-databook-spending/ --no-sign-request
   aws s3 cp s3://nyc-databook-spending/fiscal_year=2024/chunk_0001.parquet . --no-sign-request

2. Direct HTTPS:

   https://nyc-databook-spending.s3.amazonaws.com/fiscal_year=2024/chunk_0001.parquet
   

3. DuckDB (for analysis):

   INSTALL httpfs; LOAD httpfs;
   SELECT * FROM 's3://nyc-databook-spending/fiscal_year=2024/*.parquet' LIMIT 10;

Data Structure

Path	Contents
fiscal_year=YYYY/	Spending transactions (Parquet, chunked)
contracts/fiscal_year=YYYY/	Contract data (Parquet)

Data spans FY2010-FY2026 with 147M+ spending transactions.

Data Sources

• PASSPort (MOCS) - Vendor registrations, contracts, solicitations
• Checkbook NYC - City spending transactions
• City Record Online - Public notices and procurement announcements

Project Structure

nyc-contracting-explorer/
├── app.py              # Flask web application
├── mcp_server.py       # MCP server for Claude Desktop
├── serve_sse.py        # Streamable HTTP server with OAuth
├── chatbot.py          # Gemini-powered AI chatbot
├── build_database.py   # Database construction scripts
├── daily_update.py     # Daily data refresh
├── templates/          # Jinja2 HTML templates
├── static/             # CSS, JS, images
└── requirements.txt    # Python dependencies

Deployment

See Deployment Guide for production setup with nginx and systemd.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read our Contributing Guidelines before submitting PRs.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Links

• Live Demo: oce.wegov.nyc
• WeGov NYC: wegov.nyc