Black Raven Security

Paralynx Desktop

A government contractor's whole bid lifecycle on one Windows computer: find the work, decide, price, propose, and run the contract after award.

Early access Windows desktop edition of Paralynx
Download for Windows Ask about Paralynx Desktop
Paralynx Desktop take-off screen: a sample first-floor security plan with four fixed cameras and one PTZ camera placed on it, each camera's field of view shaded on the drawing, a device catalog on the left and the selected camera's properties on the right.
Take-off: cameras placed on a scaled floor plan, numbered automatically, with each field of view drawn on the drawing.

Why it exists

A single federal pursuit usually spreads across a capture tracker, a pricing spreadsheet, marked-up drawings, Word documents and, after award, another spreadsheet for the contract. Black Raven built Paralynx Desktop to run its own pursuits and contracts in one place, following the Shipley business development process. It is the desktop edition of Paralynx and shares its data model, pricing engine and AI rules.

Built for: small and mid-size government contractors who bid construction and technical-services work, such as security systems, electrical and IT, and price it with labor, materials and wage rates.

  • Find the work

    Searches SAM.gov for your NAICS codes on launch and every six hours, scores each notice for fit and explains the score. Ask in plain English instead of building filters. Solicitation Watch flags moved deadlines, amendments and set-aside changes on every open pursuit, and Recompete Radar ranks contracts ending soon from USASpending.gov, labeled as leads, not guarantees.

  • Read a notice in minutes

    An AI summary of the scope, brands named, key dates copied exactly as printed, evaluation basis, contacts and the items not to miss, read from the notice and its attachments. Start a new opportunity from the solicitation file itself, including scanned PDFs.

  • Decide the Shipley way

    A pipeline board and dashboard by Shipley phase, with win rate and bid rate kept separate because a no-bid is not a loss. A bid/no-bid scorecard with hard go/no-go gates and eight weighted factors, decision gates recorded with who decided and why, and a capture plan.

  • A full government cost buildup

    Labor, materials and a bill of materials, subcontractors, travel, other direct costs, fringe, overhead, G&A and profit across base and option periods, calculated exactly to the cent. Wage-determination lookup for Davis-Bacon and the Service Contract Act, labor-rate and price-book libraries, import of your own Excel pricing for side-by-side checking, and export to Excel.

  • Take-off from the drawings

    Set a floor plan's scale from a known line and place devices from a catalog of about 70 camera, access control, intrusion and network types. Devices number themselves across the pursuit, camera views and cable runs are drawn to scale, and the counts go straight into the bill of materials. Print a marked-up plan PDF with legend and scale bar, plus a cable report.

  • Compliance and proposal

    A compliance matrix built from the solicitation and exported to Excel. Proposal sections drafted from your own company facts and past proposals in your house template, with missing facts marked [INFO NEEDED] instead of made up. Color-team reviews, questions to the contracting officer and quick RFI responses. Amendments are always read last, so they override the original.

  • Run the contract after award

    A project schedule with linked tasks, working days, the critical path and a baseline, importable from Microsoft Project. Crew cost and earned value, including CPI, SPI and estimate at completion. Contract periods, options, modifications, invoices and funding, with warnings before you over-bill or bill an option that has not been exercised, and deliverables tracked with due dates exactly as the contract words them.

  • Across the program

    An AI assistant for one pursuit or the whole pipeline, reports with Excel export, a tamper-evident audit log, your own logo and template on every Word export, and a whole pursuit sent to a colleague as one file without API keys or company libraries.

How the AI behaves

  • It extracts and drafts. It does not invent facts.
  • Company facts come only from what your company entered.
  • It never sets a price and never calculates a date. When it builds a bill of materials or labor list, it fills quantities and hours; costs and rates are left for a person.
  • Every AI-written row is flagged for review, and a re-run never overwrites what a person changed.

Where your data lives

  • Everything you enter is stored on your own computer, not on our servers, with automatic daily backups kept for 30 days, documents included.
  • AI features use your company's own Anthropic (Claude) API key, and the SAM.gov finder uses your own free SAM.gov API key. Windows encrypts both keys on your computer.
  • When an AI feature runs, the text it needs is sent to Anthropic to be read. Nothing else leaves your computer.
  • AI and SAM.gov features need an internet connection; everything else works without one. Windows only.

Inside Paralynx Desktop

Every screen below uses made-up sample data. Select a screenshot to see it full size.

Dashboard showing active pursuits, pipeline value, weighted pipeline, win rate, bid rate, a chart of pipeline value by Shipley stage and a list of deadlines in the next 60 days.
Dashboard: pipeline value by Shipley stage, win and bid rates, and the next 60 days of deadlines.
SAM.gov finder listing sample notices for the company's NAICS codes, each with a fit score, set-aside, place, posted date and response due date, above a plain-English Ask AI search box and saved searches.
SAM.gov finder: new notices for your NAICS codes, each scored for fit.
AI summary of a sample notice showing the fit score with its reasons, a short scope summary, a don't-miss box, key dates as printed, brands and contracting contacts.
AI notice summary: scope, key dates as printed and the items not to miss, with the fit score explained.
Recompete Radar listing sample expiring contracts ranked by fit, each with the reasons for its score, agency, value and end date, under a banner saying these are leads, not guarantees.
Recompete Radar: contracts ending soon, ranked by fit, so capture can start before the recompete posts.
Bid/no-bid scorecard with pass, fail or unknown hard gates for set-aside eligibility, registration, site visit, mandatory credentials and time to respond, and a recommendation panel with a fit score.
Bid/no-bid scorecard: any failed hard gate forces a no-bid, whatever the score.
Pricing summary showing total cost, fee and total price, a cost buildup from direct labor through fringe, overhead, materials, subcontracts, travel and other direct costs, and a breakdown of where the price goes.
Pricing: the full cost buildup, from direct labor and fringe to materials, subcontracts and fee.
Compliance matrix with requirements from sections C, L and M of a sample solicitation, each mapped to the proposal volume and section that addresses it, with a status.
Compliance matrix: each requirement mapped to the proposal section that answers it.
Project schedule grid with tasks, durations, start and finish dates, predecessors and a Gantt chart with critical-path tasks in red.
Project schedule: linked tasks and working days, with the critical path in red.
Contract invoices table and firm-fixed-price financials by period, showing value, billed and left to bill for the base year and two option years, one not awarded.
Contract financials: invoices, and billed and left to bill for every period and option.

Download Paralynx Desktop

Version
0.8.18
Released
October 2026
File
Paralynx_Desktop_Setup_0_8_18.exe, 128.0 MB

Requirements

  • A Windows PC. Paralynx Desktop runs on Windows only.
  • Your company's own Anthropic (Claude) API key for the AI features.
  • Your own free SAM.gov API key for the SAM.gov finder.
  • An internet connection for the AI and SAM.gov features; everything else works without one.
  • This is an early-access build. Tell us what works and what does not.
  • The installer is not yet digitally signed, so Windows may show "Windows protected your PC". Check the SHA-256 below, then choose More info and Run anyway.

SHA-256 7aaae1f0547163bf11be97695b42e96bf9f4749eb3d17196fee6cd44854234c6

To check the file after downloading, run Get-FileHash .\Paralynx_Desktop_Setup_0_8_18.exe in PowerShell and compare the result with the SHA‑256 above.

Download for Windows

Also from Black Raven: Paralynx and Field Tech.