The vehicle an order rides

Most federal services work is bought as a task order against a vehicle the winner already holds. For those contracts, "who won this" is the less useful question. The useful one is what would I have needed to hold to bid at all, and this endpoint answers it.

Three outcomes, told apart

A single 404 would collapse three very different situations, so each is reported explicitly in status:

status	Meaning
resolved	The order rides a vehicle we carry. The vehicle record is returned.
standalone	The order has no parent. It was competed and awarded on its own.
not_in_corpus	The order names a parent vehicle that is outside our vehicle coverage. The order exists and the parent PIID is returned; we simply do not carry that vehicle.

not_in_corpus is an honest answer, not an error. It tells you the order does ride a vehicle and names it, so you know the fact exists even where we cannot yet fill it in.

Response

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $GOVCON_API_KEY" \
  "https://govconapi.com/api/v1/contracts/15BNAS26F00000156/vehicle"

{
  "piid": "15BNAS26F00000156",
  "status": "resolved",
  "parent_piid": "NNG15SD72B",
  "vehicle": {
    "award_id_piid": "NNG15SD72B",
    "idv_type": "GWAC",
    "idv_type_code": "A",
    "prime_award_base_transaction_description": "SEWP V CONTRACT, CATEGORY B, GROUP C SBSA SEWP V PROVIDES HIGH-END TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS; OPTIMIZE PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH UTILIZATION OF POWERFUL COMPUTER SYSTEMS, STATE OF THE ART SUPPORTING PERIPHERALS AND SOFTWARE ON STANDARDIZED BUT CUSTOMIZABLE SYSTEMS; AND ENSURE INTEROPERABILITY OF RELIABLE, APPLICABLE, AND AFFORDABLE IT PRODUCTS/SOLUTIONS.",
    "awarding_agency_name": "National Aeronautics and Space Administration",
    "recipient_uei": "F4M9NB1HD785",
    "recipient_name": "COLOSSAL CONTRACTING LLC",
    "action_date": "2026-06-08",
    "ceiling": 20000000000.0,
    "naics_code": "541519",
    "naics_description": "OTHER COMPUTER RELATED SERVICES",
    "usaspending_permalink": "https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_IDV_NNG15SD72B_8000/"
  },
  "_sources": ["usaspending_fpds"]
}

That order rides SEWP V, NASA's $20 billion government-wide acquisition contract. To bid work like it, you have to be on SEWP V.

A standalone contract returns:

{
  "piid": "...",
  "status": "standalone",
  "vehicle": null,
  "message": "This contract was awarded directly, not against a vehicle.",
  "_sources": ["usaspending_fpds"]
}

Coverage

The vehicles we carry resolve the large majority of orders that name a parent, and the coverage is strongest exactly where it matters most: on the biggest orders. Where a parent falls outside coverage you get not_in_corpus with the parent PIID rather than silence.

Returns 404 only when the contract PIID itself is not found.

Errors

Status	When
401	Missing or invalid API key
404	The contract PIID itself is not found. A standalone or not_in_corpus result is a 200 with status set, not a 404

Related

• /vehicles/{piid} , the full vehicle record and what has been ordered through it
• /vehicles/{piid}/holders , who else holds it, so you know the field (Pro)