A solicitation names forty clauses and gives you the words to none of them
Section I of a solicitation is a list of clause numbers and titles, incorporated by reference, fully binding, with no text. Perhaps ten of them decide what the work will actually cost you. Finding out which ten has always meant leaving the document and reading the regulation one clause at a time.
Read from the eCFR, title 48: chapter 1 is the FAR and chapter 2 is DFARS. Checked every day and re-read only when the regulation has been amended.
a score with no reasons is a horoscope
What it does
The full text of every clause in FAR part 52 and DFARS part 252, held here, keyed by the number everybody writes it as. Open 52.219-14 and you get the clause, the FAR section that prescribes it, when it was last amended, and how long it takes to read.
That turns a clause number into something you can open wherever you meet one: on a notice, on a rule that amends it, in a contract you already hold. It is the difference between a list of forty numbers and a list of forty things.
Where a clause has been read in plain words, its page carries the reading: what it requires, who it binds and when it flows down. The reading is labelled as written with AI from the text of the clause and checked against it, with the month of the clause it was read from, and the clause as published is what binds.
Which ten of the forty are the ones that matter
Most clauses are standard terms you comply with by behaving normally. A minority change what the work costs, who you may buy from, what you must be certified as, or how long it takes to be ready to bid at all.
Those families are flagged, by hand, with what each one means in a line and roughly how long it takes to be ready for it: days, weeks or months. The list is a judgement rather than a rule, and it is written out where you can read it and disagree, rather than being a weight inside something you cannot inspect.
An unflagged clause is not a clause this product says is cheap. It is a clause this product has no opinion about.
- Domestic sourcing and specialty metals, which constrain where you may buy material
- Defence cybersecurity, which is a programme of work rather than a form
- Labour standards and wage determinations, which set what you must pay
- Rights in technical data, which decide what the government may do with what you deliver
- The limitation on subcontracting, which decides how much of the work you must perform yourself
- Limitation of funds, which obliges you to write a letter before the money runs out
checked before a teaming partner is ever suggested
On a notice, without being asked
Every open notice in the product reads its own text against the library and shows the clauses it names, with the heavy ones first and the longest lead time at the top. If there is a clause in there you would need eight months to satisfy, that is a bid or no bid fact and it belongs on the screen before you start writing.
Matched against the text of the notice, so a clause listed only in an attachment will not appear. The page says so rather than implying the list is complete.
A rule amends a clause, and the clause is in open solicitations right now
The Federal Register publishes the change: a proposed rule that will amend a clause, a year or more before anything is bought under it. The eCFR publishes the current text. Neither is much use alone.
Held together, a rule on the screen names the clause it rewrites, the clause opens as text, and the same product knows which open solicitations cite it and what went out under those codes last year. That is a complete answer to whether a regulatory change is worth thirty minutes of your day, and no regulatory tracker can give it, because a regulatory tracker does not have the awards.
not who usually wins here, who won this
What is in it and what is not
| Held here | Not held here |
|---|---|
| FAR part 52: the clauses and provisions used in federal solicitations and contracts. | Agency supplements other than DFARS. AFARS, NMCARS, DEAR and the rest are published the same way and are not read yet. |
| DFARS part 252: the Defense supplement clauses. | Class deviations, which an agency issues outside the regulation. |
| The section that prescribes each clause, taken from the clause text itself. | Which clauses apply to your particular buy. Only the contracting officer decides that. |
| The date title 48 was last amended, on every clause. | Legal interpretation of any kind. This is the published text and nothing else. |
Where this page and the regulation disagree, the regulation is right. Every clause links to the same section on ecfr.gov so you can check it.
Where it is in the app
FAR and DFARS, under Knowledge in the menu. Knowledge is the part of LastAwarded that teaches the organization, one of the eight parts.
Related
- Rules and fundingThe change, a year before the solicitation it produces.
- Reading a solicitationWhere section I sits and why it is skipped.
- Module 8 of the courseBuilding your own list of the clauses that matter to your business.
- Data and sources NewEvery system read, and how often.
See who was last awarded in your NAICS
Every code, every buying office, every vendor and every recompete, organized from the federal record and read nightly. Open it with a plan.