Tariff change alerts

Tariff change alerts turn saved source snapshots into a lightweight monitoring workflow.

The goal is not to prove that a duty rate, Chapter 99 instruction, Section 301 treatment, AD/CVD scope, exclusion, or filing position is correct. The goal is to tell the importer: “a source you rely on may have changed; review it before reusing the saved scenario.”

What the MVP does

Pro beta and Team pilot users can:

• create a source monitor from a saved source snapshot;
• choose a manual, daily, weekly, or monthly check cadence;
• run a first check to capture a baseline fingerprint;
• run manual checks from the workspace;
• let the scheduled endpoint check due monitors;
• receive an alert when the official-source fingerprint changes or when a check needs attention;
• acknowledge or dismiss alerts after professional review.

Automated checks are restricted to allowlisted official HTTPS domains such as USITC, CBP, CROSS, USTR, and Trade.gov/ACCESS resources. This prevents TariffsChart from becoming a general-purpose website fetcher.

How checks work

For USITC HTS monitors, TariffsChart attempts to read the structured HTS lookup response and fingerprint the fields that matter most for review:

• HTS number;
• description;
• general, special, and Column 2 fields;
• units;
• footnotes;
• quota quantity;
• additional duties text.

For other allowlisted official pages, TariffsChart strips scripts/styles, normalizes the text, and fingerprints the resulting body excerpt. A changed fingerprint creates a review alert, not an automatic legal conclusion.

Alert types

• Baseline captured: first successful check. Future checks compare against this baseline.
• Content changed: the latest fingerprint differs from the saved baseline.
• Check needs attention: the source could not be fetched, returned an error, or is not eligible for automated monitoring.
• Manual review: reserved for future workflows where a user or reviewer flags a source manually.

Production setup

Set a cron secret before enabling scheduled checks:

TARIFF_MONITOR_CRON_SECRET=replace-with-random-secret
# optional fallback
CRON_SECRET=replace-with-random-secret

The scheduled endpoint is:

/api/tariff/source-monitors/run

It accepts either:

Authorization: Bearer <TARIFF_MONITOR_CRON_SECRET>

or:

x-cron-secret: <TARIFF_MONITOR_CRON_SECRET>

The included Cloudflare scheduled() handler calls this endpoint daily through the cron trigger in wrangler.jsonc. The route also accepts CRON_SECRET as a fallback environment variable if your hosting scheduler already standardizes on that name. Manual checks from the workspace are always available to Pro beta and Team pilot users.

Reliance boundary

TariffsChart change monitoring is a planning and recordkeeping workflow. It does not determine classification, final rates, Chapter 99 treatment, Section 301 coverage, USTR exclusions, AD/CVD scope, admissibility, valuation, or filing instructions. Treat every alert as a prompt to open the official source, compare the saved snapshot, and confirm implications with a qualified customs broker or other appropriate professional.