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Prompt Scenarios: Trade, Customs & Logistics

Live-tested prompts for CN/TARIC classification, duties, RU/BY goods embargo checks and pre-shipment compliance — for customs brokers and freight forwarders.

Last reviewed 13 August 2026

Every scenario below was run against the live platform while writing this page — CN codes, countries and returned data are real, not illustrative.

1. Who This Is For

Customs brokers, freight forwarders, importers and exporters — anyone who needs to know what a CN/TARIC code means, what it costs, and whether it's restricted, before a shipment moves. Works the same way from the in-cabinet AI Assistant (slash commands) or an external ChatGPT/Claude client connected over MCP (plain language — the model reads each tool's description and matches it to your wording).

2. Full Compliance Report For A Code And Country

Prompt: "Create a client HTML compliance report for CN 7208510000 from RU."

Tool: get_compliance_report.

Verified live: a real report generated in under a second, with signed, time-limited open and download URLs, visible_measure_count: 4, sanctions_match_count: 2, review_required: true. The run itself is saved as a transient goods_screening_run for 24 hours, re-readable with get_goods_screening_run without regenerating anything.

3. Quick Overview

Prompt: "Give me a short overview for CN 8517130000 from CN."

Tool: get_overview.

A compact card — description, duty signal, sanctions status, key measure types — for when a full report is more than the moment calls for.

4. RU/BY Goods Embargo, With The Goods-Risk Layer Behind It

Prompt: "Is CN 8517130000 restricted for export to Belarus? Show whether it's a direct or group-level match, and flag anything export-control relevant."

Tool: check_trade_compliance (or check_sanctions for the embargo check alone).

Verified live, and this is the scenario worth understanding fully: CN 8517130000 to BY comes back with sanctions.match_count: 4, code_flagged: true for both BY and RU — and, stacked on top of that, a real goods_risk hit: "Potential EU dual-use item — the goods correlate to EU Dual-Use Regulation (EU) 2021/821 Annex I control code(s) 3A501, 3A502, 5A002, 5A003, 5A004 … A control assessment / export licence may be required." One query, two independent restriction layers on the same code — the RU/BY goods-sanctions embargo, and a separate export-control candidate signal. See Export-Control Coverage for how the second layer works and why it needs a product description to reach its full depth, not just the code.

5. Duty Rates Only

Prompt: "What is the duty rate for CN 7208510000 imported from CN today?"

Tool: get_duties.

Verified live — and worth knowing before you rely on this one: get_duties returns an error, not an empty list, when a code has no third-country/customs-union/preferential duty measure (types 103/105/106) currently active. CN 7208510000 is a real example: its only current measures are a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism charge and two unrelated suspensions (ships/platforms, airworthiness) — none of them a classic duty type — so get_duties errors while get_measures on the same code returns all three correctly. If /duty comes back empty or erroring, check /measures on the same code before concluding there's no charge — there may be a CBAM, suspension or other non-duty-type measure carrying the real cost instead.

6. Full TARIC Measures

Prompt: "Show me every measure on CN 7208510000 for imports from China — duties, CBAM, suspensions, everything."

Tool: get_measures.

Machine-readable, no report wrapper. Returns every measure with conditions, exclusions, footnotes and the underlying EUR-Lex regulation link — country optional (leave empty for a global view), measure type optional as a filter (e.g. 775 for CBAM).

7. Finding A Code From A Product Description

Prompt: "Find likely CN codes for smartphones."

Tool: search_cn_codes.

Returns candidates with descriptions and, where the description alone is ambiguous, the clarification questions worth asking the client — material, use, power, composition.

8. Classification Hierarchy, No Measures

Prompt: "Describe CN 7208510000 and show where it sits in the classification hierarchy."

Tool: get_cn_description.

Verified live: chapter → heading → subheading → selected code, cleanly separated from any measure or sanctions data — for when the question is purely "what is this code," not "what applies to it."

9. Composite: KYC Plus Goods Report In One Dialogue

Prompt: "I'm shipping CN 7208510000 from RU. The recipient is Karvela Machinery ZAO. Create a goods compliance report and screen the company."

Tools: get_compliance_report and screen_entities, called together.

Two independent results — a goods report and an entity screening — that the assistant should present as one operator decision. These answer genuinely different questions, covered in more depth in Entity Screening Algorithms: a clean counterparty does not clear a restricted good, and a clean good does not clear a sanctioned counterparty.

10. Composite: Pre-Shipment RU/BY Check

Prompt: "Before shipment: CN 8517130000 to Belarus, counterparty Karvela Machinery ZAO. Run goods compliance, sanctions screening and Verification of Payee together."

Tools: check_sanctions, screen_entities, screen_entity_vop.

A combined go/no-go: the goods embargo signal, the entity sanctions result, and the VoP code, with legal grounds cited for each. Three checks, three different pass/fail lines — none of them optional if the others pass.

11. Explainability: The Source Catalog

Prompt: "Where does your customs and sanctions data come from? Show the catalog and last refresh dates."

Tool: list_sanctions_sources.

The catalog is large and growing — well over ninety sources across sanctions, export control, customs and legal-reference categories — so treat this tool's own live result as the current word on coverage rather than any fixed list in a document.

12. Tips

  • Quote CN codes exactly, 8 or 10 digits, no spaces — 7208510000, not 7208 51 0000.
  • Use ISO-2 country codes — RU, BY, CN, JP, LV.
  • Ask for "a client HTML report" to trigger get_compliance_report specifically, rather than a shorter overview.
  • If a duty lookup comes back empty, check the full measures list before concluding there's no charge — see §5.
  • A CN code alone rarely reaches the deepest export-control candidates — pairing it with a short product description finds far more, as shown in Export-Control Coverage.

13. Related Material