Service Contract Inventory analysis

Use Service Contract Inventory records when the user asks how much service-contract work is being performed, which contractors are doing it, how prime and subcontractor work is distributed, or whether reported labor levels suggest workforce-rebalancing opportunities. Do not answer these questions by filtering federal awards or IDVs for the Service Contract Inventory legislative mandate label.

Choose the right record

Search_Service_Contract_Inventory returns one vendor slice from a source Service Contract Inventory row. Prime records can include row-level totals such as dollars invoiced, total hours, total FTEs, subcontractor count, subcontractor hours share, and derived hourly rate. Subcontractor records include the subcontractor's reported hours and FTEs, but not per-subcontractor dollars.

Use federal award, IDV, or transaction tools when the user needs award lifecycle, obligations, or transaction history. Use SCI when the user needs service labor footprint, FTEs, contractor reliance, workshare, or source inventory provenance.

Analysis patterns

For contractor reliance questions, filter by fiscal_year, agency, PSC, NAICS, contract number, or vendor, then request role, hours_invoiced, ftes, total_ftes, vendor, and federal_contract_award. Use top_vendors_by_doc_count, top_contracting_agencies_by_doc_count, and hour or FTE stats to size the footprint before retrieving rows.

For workshare questions, compare role, hours_invoiced, ftes, subcontractor_count, and sub_hours_share. A prime record with subcontractor_count greater than zero and a higher sub_hours_share should be treated as a blended prime-plus-sub workshare signal, not a pure prime performance measure.

For workforce-rebalancing context, combine FTE and hour filters with parent-award agency, PSC, NAICS, place-of-performance, and requirement description. SCI indicates reported contractor labor on service contracts; it does not decide whether a position should be federalized or outsourced.

For pricing and workshare comparisons, use derived_hourly_rate only on prime records and prefer subcontractor_count_range.max = 0 when the user wants a cleaner prime-only rate proxy. Pair SCI-derived rates with GSA labor rates, BLS wage data, line items, or awarded-price evidence when the answer needs pricing support beyond the inventory row.

Related articles

• Search Service Contract Inventory MCP tool: Build the tool call and choose fields, filters, aggregations, and sorts.
• Service Contract Inventory MCP response: Review response fields returned to agents.
• Service Contract Inventory record data type: Understand the source-backed record shape.