Tender watch
An agent that reads new public tenders on SIMAP for one of your roles and proposes the ones that fit.
Last verified 2026-10-07
In the web app
What the tender watch does
The tender watch is an agent for one of your roles: on its schedule it reads the new public tenders on SIMAP, the Swiss public procurement platform, and proposes the ones that fit the role's watch list on your approvals desk.
Like every agent it only prepares: nothing is created until you approve.
Set up a watch list
Under Settings, Agents, open Add tender watch at the role and fill in the watch list.
- Keywords: up to 10 words SIMAP searches for, such as Website, Drupal or Digital Media, each 3 to 60 characters.
- CPV codes: search SIMAP's list of CPV codes and add up to 10, shown with their name, such as "72413000 Website design services".
- Languages: German, French, Italian and English (de, fr, it, en); pick at least one.
- Schedule: every day, on chosen weekdays, every week on one weekday, or every month on a day of the month (or the last day), with a time of day; always Zurich time.
For example, "On weekdays" with Monday and Thursday at 07:30 runs the watch twice a week, at 07:30 those two days; "Every month on the" with 1 and 09:00 runs it once, on the 1st of each month at 09:00. Under the schedule choice, a line shows it in words and when it next runs.
A watch list needs at least one keyword or one CPV code. Save watch list says "Watch list saved."; Change watch list changes it later.
Monthly limit
Once the tender watch exists, its own monthly limit shows below the save button: an amount in Swiss francs from 0 up to the limit named there, the same limit every agent shares. 0 means the agent may not spend.
What SIMAP data is read
zonask reads only SIMAP's public search and the public details of a tender, without an account and without a login, and never downloads documents that need a registration.
Each run looks at the tenders published in the last 2 days (daily) or 8 days (weekly) and at most 100 of them; only open calls for bids whose offer deadline has not passed count.
An AI rates all new tenders of a run in one go against your watch list and writes a summary of at most two sentences for the ones that fit; at most 10 become proposals per run.
When SIMAP does not answer, the agent's page says "SIMAP did not answer. zonask tries again at the next run."
How a tender becomes tasks
Each fitting tender waits on your approvals desk as one proposal, for example "Tender: Website relaunch, Musterstadt city administration", then its offer and question deadlines and "Create tasks?".
Approve adds a task "Submit offer:" with the tender's title, due on the offer deadline, and, when the tender has a deadline for questions, a task "Ask questions:" due on that day, in the agent's role.
Reject drops the tender; it is never proposed again by that watch.
The digest
The agent's page and Today show the tenders of the last run with their buyer, deadlines, summary and a link to SIMAP; without new ones it says, for example, "No new tenders since Monday."
The next morning plan email lists them under "New tenders".
What is kept for 30 days
The tenders an agent proposes (title, buyer, deadlines and summary) are encrypted and deleted after 30 days, also when you approved them; a rejected tender is deleted at once.
zonask keeps the SIMAP id of each tender it proposed, so it never proposes it twice; nothing else SIMAP returns is stored.
In Claude or ChatGPT
Ask, for example, whether there are new tenders for one of your roles this week: get_research_digest answers with each role's new tenders and one line per role with how many there are and the next offer deadline.
create_agent adds a role's tender watch and update_agent changes its watch list; both show the watch list first and save it only after your confirm. The schedule can still be the word "daily" or "weekly", or an object naming one of the four kinds and a time.
update_agent with month_cap_chf alone changes an agent's own monthly limit, 0 to the limit every agent shares; it shows the amount first and saves it only after your confirm. The amount is in francs and cents: one with more than two decimals is refused.
The tenders wait in list_approvals, and answer_approval approves or rejects them.