# NJ Government Bid Alerts (`reverberant_equality/nj-gov-bid-alerts`) Actor

Scrape open NJ government bids, RFPs, and solicitations from the New Jersey Purchasing Group. Search by keyword or county. Get bid titles, locations, published dates, closing dates, and detail URLs.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/reverberant\_equality/nj-gov-bid-alerts.md
- **Developed by:** [Jordan C](https://apify.com/reverberant_equality) (community)
- **Categories:** AI
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.01 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## NJ Government Bid Alerts — Apify Actor

A [CheerioCrawler](https://crawlee.dev/docs/guides/cheerio-crawler)-based Apify Actor that scrapes open solicitations (bids/RFPs) from the **BidNetDirect New Jersey Purchasing Group** page.

### Why Cheerio?

The target page serves **static HTML tables**. Cheerio is **~10× faster and drastically cheaper** than Playwright — no browser overhead, no JavaScript execution cost. Perfect for this use case.

### Data Extracted

Each scraped bid produces a dataset item with:

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| `title` | Solicitation/bid title |
| `location` | Geographic region (county, municipality, or state) |
| `publishedDate` | Date published (MM/DD/YYYY) |
| `closingDate` | Submission deadline (MM/DD/YYYY) |
| `detailUrl` | Absolute URL to the bid detail page |
| `source` | Always `"BidNetDirect - New Jersey Purchasing Group"` |
| `scrapedAt` | ISO 8601 scrape timestamp |

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `keyword` | string | `""` | Optional — filter bids whose title contains this text (case-insensitive) |
| `maxResults` | integer | `50` | Maximum number of bids to return (`0` = no limit) |
| `county` | string | `""` | Optional — filter bids whose location contains this text (case-insensitive) |

### Output

Structured JSON dataset in the Apify dataset storage.

### PPE (Pay Per Event) Charges

- **`search-start`** — `$0.005` — charged once per run at startup
- **`bid-result`** — `$0.002` — charged per bid written to the dataset

### Local Development

```bash
## Install dependencies
npm install

## Compile TypeScript
npm run build

## Validate input schema
apify validate-schema

## Run locally
npm start

## Run with Apify platform simulation
apify run --purge
```

### Notes

- The scraper follows pagination via the "Next" link on the page.
- Respects `maxResults` — stops enqueuing new pages once the limit is reached.
- Handles the "no bids" empty state gracefully.
- Retries failed requests up to 3 times.

# Actor input Schema

## `keyword` (type: `string`):

Optional keyword to filter bids by title or description. Case-insensitive partial match.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of bid results to return. Set to 0 for no limit (scrapes all available pages).

## `county` (type: `string`):

Optional county name to filter bids by location (e.g., 'Mercer', 'Morris'). Case-insensitive partial match against the location field.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "maxResults": 50
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

The default dataset containing all scraped bid records.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "keyword": "",
    "maxResults": 50,
    "county": ""
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("reverberant_equality/nj-gov-bid-alerts").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "keyword": "",
    "maxResults": 50,
    "county": "",
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("reverberant_equality/nj-gov-bid-alerts").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "keyword": "",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "county": ""
}' |
apify call reverberant_equality/nj-gov-bid-alerts --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=reverberant_equality/nj-gov-bid-alerts",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/KxYk8N3gD6fjk3i6N/builds/9ZcROvjTvfsaJJSFK/openapi.json