congress-trades

name

congress-trades

description

Track US congress member and politician stock trades in real-time using the Quiver Quant API. Syncs trades to a local SQLite database, detects new significant trades above 15K, and sends alerts via OpenClaw messaging. Only requires Python with the requests library and a QUIVER_API_KEY environment variable. Use when setting up congressional trade monitoring, politician stock trade alerts, insider trading surveillance, or tracking what senators and representatives are buying and selling.

Congress Trades Tracker

Monitor US congressional stock trades via Quiver Quant API, store in a local SQLite database, and alert on new significant trades. Requires Python requests library and a Quiver Quant API key.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+ with requests (pip install requests)
• QUIVER_API_KEY environment variable (get a key at https://www.quiverquant.com/)

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Default	Description
QUIVER_API_KEY	Yes	—	Quiver Quant API token
CONGRESS_DB_PATH	No	data/congress_trades.db	SQLite database path
MIN_TRADE_AMOUNT	No	15001	Minimum trade amount to trigger alerts

Set these in your shell profile, .env file, or cron environment. Never hard-code API keys in the script.

Setup

1. Install Python dependency

pip install requests

2. Set your API key

export QUIVER_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"

3. Schedule with user cron (no sudo needed)

Add your env vars to ~/.profile or a .env file sourced by your shell, then add the cron entry:

crontab -e
# Add this line (uses env vars from your profile):
* * * * * . "$HOME/.profile" && /usr/bin/python3 /path/to/scripts/scraper.py >> /path/to/logs/scraper.log 2>&1

Never inline API keys directly in crontab entries.

4. Set up OpenClaw alert pickup

Add to your HEARTBEAT.md:

## Check for congress trade alerts
- Read `congress_trades/data/pending_congress_alert.txt` — if it has content, send the alert to the user, then delete the file.

Or create an OpenClaw cron job (every 5 min) to check and forward alerts.

How It Works

1. Scraper runs every minute, fetches latest 200 trades from api.quiverquant.com
2. Inserts into local SQLite with unique trade_key deduplication
3. First run initializes DB and reports newest trade
4. Subsequent runs detect new trades, filter to buys/sells above threshold
5. Writes formatted alert to data/pending_congress_alert.txt for OpenClaw pickup
6. Keeps last 50 alerts in data/new_trades.json

Network and Data

• Only outbound connection: api.quiverquant.com (Quiver Quant API)
• Storage: local SQLite file + JSON alert files in data/
• No external endpoints besides the Quiver API
• Restrict file permissions on data directory (chmod 700 data/)

Alert Format

🏛️ 3 new congress trade(s) detected:

🟢 PURCHASE: Nancy Pelosi (D) [Rep]
   $NVDA — $1,000,001 - $5,000,000
   Trade: 2026-02-10 | Reported: 2026-02-14

🔴 SALE: Dan Crenshaw (R) [Rep]
   $MSFT — $15,001 - $50,000
   Trade: 2026-02-09 | Reported: 2026-02-14

Customization

• MIN_TRADE_AMOUNT: raise/lower via env var to change alert threshold
• Fetch limit: change limit=200 in fetch_trades() for broader sweeps
• Cron frequency: reduce to every 5 or 15 minutes if you prefer less polling