Lookup by name

Resolver lookup for federal contracting officers: pass a name (and optionally an agency), get back up to 5 matching contacts with email, phone, agency, department, and location. Designed for BD, outreach, and intelligence platforms that already know who they are looking for and need the contact info to act on it.

This is a resolver, not a directory. There is no listing endpoint and no filter-only browse. To explore the directory (search by NAICS, view award history, see colleague graphs), use the GovCon Contacts web app at contacts.govconapi.com (included with Pro).

Parameters

One of name or email is required.

Parameter	Description
`name`	Name or partial name. Min 2 characters, case-insensitive substring match. Returns up to 5 results.
`agency`	Optional, with `name`. Agency or department substring for disambiguation (`Air Force`, `DLA`, `Veterans`).
`state`	Optional, with `name`. 2-letter state/territory code.
`email`	Exact email for reverse lookup (CRM enrichment). Returns one record.

Response

{
  "data": [
    {
      "name": "Joseph Nemedy",
      "current_agency": "DEPT OF THE AIR FORCE",
      "current_department": "DEPT OF DEFENSE",
      "current_location_city": "Shaw Afb",
      "current_location_state": "SC",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "phones": ["(803) 895-5354"],
      "last_seen": "2026-05-09"
    }
  ],
  "filters_applied": {"name": "Joseph", "agency": "Air Force"},
  "result_count": 1
}

Examples

# Lookup by name
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  "https://govconapi.com/api/v1/contacts/lookup?name=Joseph"

# Disambiguate with agency + state
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  "https://govconapi.com/api/v1/contacts/lookup?name=Smith&agency=Air%20Force&state=GA"

Heads-up on generic terms: "Coordinator", "Specialist", and similar return shared role inboxes (e.g. "BAA Coordinator" appears in 23 agencies as a shared queue) rather than individual people. Use agency and/or state to narrow, or look up by email when you need exactly one record.

Caching: responses are sent with Cache-Control: no-store and are not cached by the edge, so every call is served live. The underlying directory refreshes nightly; if you repeat identical lookups, cache the result in your own client to save quota.

Errors: 401 (no auth), 402 (Developer key, Pro required), 404 (no matches), 422 (neither name nor email, or name too short), 429 (rate limit), 503 (contacts store transiently unavailable; retry).

Coverage: tens of thousands of federal contracting officers and specialists across 150+ agencies, refreshed nightly from federal contract notices. Effectively all carry an email; a majority also carry a phone number.