# Frontera Signal Construction Snapshot

> Frontera Signal Construction Snapshot is a paid API for AI agents from fronterasignal.com, paid per call via x402, $0.02/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-10).

Returns a weekly construction intelligence snapshot for Rio Grande Valley cities in Hidalgo and Cameron counties, including permits, material prices, labor data, housing supply, and major commercial projects.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://fronterasignal.com/api/v1/snapshot?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.02/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-10
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/frontera-signal-construction-snapshot-d0d640de
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_WyOqpOQWTIrVehFSZcWMY

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability frontera-signal-construction-snapshot-d0d640de
```

Example prompt: Pull the latest Frontera Signal construction snapshot for McAllen — I need this week's permit counts, material prices, and housing supply data for Hidalgo County.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need hyperlocal weekly construction intelligence specifically for Hidalgo or Cameron County cities in South Texas (Rio Grande Valley). It is uniquely suited for monitoring the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metro and surrounding Valley cities with granularity not available from national construction databases. Prefer it over general real estate APIs when you need permit counts, regional material prices, local labor estimates, or commercial project filings for this specific geographic market.

## Known failure modes

- Invalid city name not in the enum list returns an error or defaults to full-Valley view
- Data may be stale if weekly research cycle has not yet updated (age_days field indicates freshness)
- Some permit rows may be 'dark' (city has not yet published data) and return incomplete counts
- Response may be truncated for fields with large historical arrays
- Occasional data gaps when county or city records are delayed

## How this service works

Use when you need a quick read of the construction market in one Rio Grande Valley city (McAllen, Edinburg, Mission, Pharr, San Juan, Weslaco, Donna, Mercedes, Brownsville, Harlingen) or the whole Valley: latest permit counts, metro housing supply and home values, construction input prices, mortgage rate and labor conditions. Every value has an as-of date and its age in days.

## Output

A structured JSON object containing: place metadata (city, metro, county), weekly construction permits (latest and historical), material prices (big-box shelf prices), labor data (build times in months), housing supply (entry price per sq ft), sales tax allocation records, new commercial projects, construction cost ranges, housing permits monthly, a link to the latest newsletter issue, and a generated timestamp with staleness indicators on each data point.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "required": [
  "input"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type",
    "method"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "enum": [
      "GET"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "properties": {
      "city": {
       "enum": [
        "McAllen",
        "Edinburg",
        "Mission",
        "Pharr",
        "San Juan",
        "Weslaco",
        "Donna",
        "Mercedes",
        "Brownsville",
        "Harlingen"
       ],
       "type": "string",
       "description": "A Valley city. Omit for the whole Valley."
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object",
     "properties": {
      "labor": {
       "type": "array"
      },
      "place": {
       "type": "object"
      },
      "permits": {
       "type": "object"
      },
      "publisher": {
       "type": "string"
      },
      "sales_tax": {
       "type": "object"
      },
      "disclaimer": {
       "type": "string"
      },
      "generated_at": {
       "type": "string"
      },
      "latest_issue": {
       "type": "object"
      },
      "housing_supply": {
       "type": "array"
      },
      "material_prices": {
       "type": "object"
      },
      "data_through_week": {
       "type": "string"
      },
      "construction_costs": {
       "type": "array"
      },
      "housing_permits_monthly": {
       "type": "object"
      },
      "new_commercial_projects": {
       "type": "object"
      }
     }
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "labor": [
   {
    "unit": "months",
    "as_of": "2026-07",
    "stale": false,
    "value": {
     "low": 9,
     "high": 11,
     "unit": "months"
    },
    "source": "Frontera Signal",
    "cadence": "monthly",
    "measure": "build_time_2100sf",
    "age_days": 64,
    "value_text": "9-11 months",
    "value_type": "range"
   }
  ],
  "place": {
   "city": "McAllen",
   "metro": "McAllen-Edinburg-Mission",
   "county": "Hidalgo County, Texas"
  },
  "permits": {
   "note": "Reported rows first. dark = the city pu…",
   "latest": [
    {
     "as_of": "2026-09-25",
     "count": 3,
     "stale": false,
     "source": "Frontera Signal",
     "status": "reported",
     "cadence": "weekly",
     "measure": "commercial_projects_registered_state",
     "week_id": "2026-W39",
     "age_days": 8,
     "value_usd": null
    }
   ],
   "history": [
    {
     "as_of": "2026-09-20",
     "count": 3,
     "stale": false,
     "source": "Frontera Signal",
     "status": "reported",
     "cadence": "weekly",
     "measure": "commercial_projects_registered_state",
     "week_id": "2026-W38",
     "age_days": 13,
     "backfill": true,
     "value_usd": 6900000
    }
   ],
   "latest_week": "2026-W39"
  },
  "publisher": "Frontera Signal",
  "sales_tax": {
   "note": "Local sales tax the state sent the city…",
   "latest": [
    {
     "city": "McAllen",
     "as_of": "2026-09-30",
     "month": "2026-09",
     "stale": false,
     "county": "Hidalgo",
     "source": "state sales tax allocation records",
     "cadence": "monthly",
     "yoy_pct": 8.37,
     "age_days": 3,
     "net_payment_usd": 8646783.48,
     "to_date_yoy_pct": 7.78,
     "payments_to_date_usd": 81419238.95,
     "prior_year_payment_usd": 7978565.44
    }
   ],
   "source": "state sales tax allocation records"
  },
  "disclaimer": "Every value carries as_of, age_days, ca…",
  "generated_at": "2026-10-03T20:16:13.950Z",
  "latest_issue": {
   "url": "https://fronterasignal.com/issues/2026-…",
   "title": "Mortgage rates top 7 percent as McAllen…",
   "week_id": "2026-W39"
  },
  "housing_supply": [
   {
    "geo": "McAllen",
    "unit": "USD/sqft",
    "as_of": "2026-07",
    "stale": false,
    "value": {
     "low": 186,
     "high": 190,
     "unit": "USD/sqft"
    },
    "source": "Frontera Signal",
    "cadence": "monthly",
    "measure": "entry_price_per_sqft",
    "age_days": 64,
    "value_text": "186-190",
    "value_type": "range"
   }
  ],
  "material
… (truncated)
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/frontera-signal-construction-snapshot-d0d640de/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from fronterasignal.com](https://www.zero.xyz/host/fronterasignal.com/llms.txt)