Understand your results

Know what happened, why it might matter, and what the data cannot tell you.

A result is a reason to investigate a company, not a promise that it will buy.

Read a result in this order

Field	Question it answers
observed_fact	What activity does the source describe?
evidence[].source_uri and excerpt	Where can I check the supporting information?
occurred_at	When did the reported activity happen?
observed_at	When was it observed?
why_it_may_matter	Why might this activity be relevant to the search?
demand_class	Is the need explicit, indirect, or structural?
confidence	How confident is the observation? This is not a purchase probability.

Facts are not inferred demand

Illustrative example: a company announces a new warehouse. That announcement is an observed fact. It might need warehouse equipment, but the announcement does not prove an open budget or a purchase.

Demand class	Meaning
explicit_request	Evidence of an expressed request or need. Still not a guaranteed sale.
proxy	An activity that may suggest a need, such as a facility expansion.
structural	A possible need inferred from the company’s circumstances.

Company results contain up to three supporting observations. Ranking is not a calibrated fit score. Several evidence references can report the same original source; reference count is not independent verification. differing_source_claims flags differing claims among the returned observations for you to inspect. It does not choose which claim is true.

profile_sources_unverified means the returned company includes a provider-reported profile whose fields have not been independently checked against current source pages. Its excerpt is the profile description, not necessarily a quote from source_uri; that URL may be the company’s homepage. observed_at records when the profile was received, not when its claims were verified. Treat it as structural context to investigate, not current source-confirmed buying evidence.

Coverage has limits

Company search currently returns coverage_status: "partial". Read coverage.stop_reason and coverage.limitations alongside the results. An empty list does not prove no matching company exists. The implemented observation kinds are company profiles, procurement requests and facility expansions, in Canada and the United States. Profiles establish structural fit, not an expressed buying need. A broad natural-language question does not expand that coverage.

next_cursor continues the existing search snapshot. It does not start a new round of research. An explicit target can request up to 1,000 accepted companies across pages; without target the shortlist cap is 100. Coverage may be smaller. A new search may produce a different list.

Results can change when you replay them

Detail reads and operation replays recheck current evidence. Expired or withdrawn evidence may no longer be returned. withheld_units reports previously delivered companies that no longer have eligible support; the historical usage settlement does not change.

Use company-list workflows to filter and investigate results, or the API Reference tab for the complete response schema.