Favorites, saved searches, and pursuits

Choose between favoriting a record, saving a search, and creating a pursuit when an agent needs to keep something for later.

GovTribe offers three ways to keep something for later, and they are not interchangeable. Favorites keep a single record. Saved searches keep a query. Pursuits keep active capture work. Picking the wrong one clutters a customer's workspace: a pursuit created for a vendor an agent merely found interesting adds noise to a pipeline, and a favorite used where a saved search belongs loses the filters that made the result set useful.

Choose the right one

Use	When	Tool
Favorite	One specific record is worth revisiting, and nothing else needs to happen to it yet.	Set favorite
Saved search	The query, filters, and sort should be reusable, or the customer wants notifications when results change.	Create saved search
Pursuit	The record has become real capture work that belongs in a pipeline stage with owners and tasks.	Create pursuit

Favorite a record

Favoriting is the lightest option. It saves one record to the signed-in user's account, changes nothing about the record itself, and notifies nobody. Reach for it during research, when a vendor, agency, category, vehicle, program, or file is worth another look but does not yet justify a pipeline entry.

Favorites are per user rather than per workspace, and they are scoped to a record type. A customer's favorite vendors and favorite NAICS categories are separate lists, reachable from the vendor and NAICS search surfaces respectively, not one combined list.

Setting a favorite is idempotent, so an agent never needs to read the current state first. Favoriting an already-favorited record returns the existing favorite and creates nothing new.

Search within favorites

Every search tool whose record type supports favorites accepts a favorited argument. Pass true to restrict results to records the signed-in user has favorited.

{
  "tool": "Search_Vendors",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "logistics",
    "favorited": true,
    "fields_to_return": [
      "govtribe_id",
      "name"
    ]
  }
}

Two rules matter when using it:

Only true is accepted. There is no supported way to search for records the customer has not favorited; omit the argument to search everything.
The argument requires a signed-in user. An unauthenticated call returns a clear error rather than silently returning unfiltered results.

If the customer has no favorites of that record type, a favorited: true search correctly returns nothing. Treat an empty result as an empty shortlist, not as a failed search.

Save a search instead

When what matters is the query rather than any single record, create a saved search. A saved search preserves the search text, filters, and sort so the customer can reopen the same result set later, and it can notify them when new records match. See Use saved searches for the full workflow.

Favoriting each result of a search is not a substitute. Favorites capture the records that existed at that moment; a saved search keeps finding new ones.

Create a pursuit instead

When a record has become active work the customer intends to bid, track, or staff, create a pursuit. Pursuits live in a pipeline stage, carry owners, tasks, comments, and discussions, and are visible to the workspace rather than to one user.

Do not create pursuits speculatively. If an agent is unsure whether a record has crossed from research into capture work, favorite it and say so, then let the customer decide.

Set favorite: Add or remove a record from the signed-in user's favorites.
Use saved searches: Create, find, reopen, and update GovTribe saved searches through MCP tools.
Create pursuit: Move a record into capture work in a pipeline stage.
Use favorites: See how favorites behave for customers in GovTribe Web.