Hazmat Documentation & Placard Checker

The problem this kills

Hazmat shipments fail for boring, preventable reasons: a mistyped UN number, a packing group that doesn't match the hazard class, a proper shipping name copied from the wrong line, or a placard plan that nobody double-checked. When one of those slips through, you're not looking at a re-pick - you're looking at refused freight, fines, a carrier that won't take your next load, and in the worst case a genuine safety incident.

Most teams "solve" this with a veteran who keeps it all in their head and a shipping paper template in Word. That works until that person is on vacation, the volume spikes, or a new hire fills in the form. The knowledge isn't written down anywhere a system can enforce it, and nothing stops a bad document from going out the door.

This plan gives you a tool that checks every hazmat line against your rules, drafts the shipping paper for you, and - critically - refuses to release anything until a trained hazmat employee has reviewed and signed off.

What you'll build

An internal web app where your team enters the hazmat items on a shipment (UN number, hazard class, packing group, proper shipping name, quantity, packaging) and the tool:

• Validates the required fields against a UN reference table you control, flagging mismatches (e.g., a class that doesn't match the UN number, a missing packing group where one is required).
• Applies your placarding rules to recommend which placards the load needs.
• Drafts the shipping paper in your format, ready for review.
• Routes it to a trained hazmat employee who must approve before the shipment is marked releasable.
• Keeps a permanent, tamper-evident record of every shipment, every check, and every approval.

What's inside the Implementation Plan

A complete, paste-and-go runbook for an AI coding agent (Claude Code) - written so a non-developer can follow it. It starts by interviewing you about your actual hazmat operation - your modes (ground/air/ocean), your item naming and UN conventions, your volumes, your placarding thresholds, and your messy exceptions - so the tool is tailored to how you ship, not a generic template. From there it walks you step by step through building the database, the entry screens, the validation engine, the UN reference table, the placard logic, the shipping-paper draft, the approval gate, and the audit trail - each step ending in a ready-to-paste prompt.

It also includes a no-API fallback: you can load your hazmat data from a Google Sheet or CSV and export a clean shipping-paper CSV in exactly the columns your TMS or carrier portal expects - so you can build and use this today, with no integration work.

The governance it includes (this is the point)

Hazmat is legally significant, so the controls are not optional:

• Login so only your team can use the tool.
• Row-level security so each organization only ever sees its own shipments.
• A hard human-in-the-loop approval gate: the AI drafts the shipping paper and placard plan, a trained hazmat employee reviews it, and only an approval marks the shipment releasable. Nothing is committed as "good to ship" without a named person signing off.
• A complete audit trail: who entered the data, what the validator flagged, who approved, and when.
• Duplicate guards keyed on shipment + UN number so the same hazmat line can't be processed or released twice by accident.

Who it's for

Hazmat shippers, dangerous-goods coordinators, and compliance teams who are tired of catching errors at the dock (or worse, after the truck leaves) and want a checked, documented, approval-gated process - without hiring a developer.

You've got this - paste the first prompt and let the agent interview you.