Glossary of terms

Terms that come up around this app. If you've heard one and weren't sure what it meant, this is the page.

Transport / cargo terms

AWB — Air Waybill A document that travels with air cargo. Like a bill of lading but for flights. Has a unique number used to track the shipment.

BOL — Bill of Lading A document that travels with ground or ocean cargo. Identifies the consignor, consignee, contents, and route.

IAC — Indirect Air Carrier A TSA designation for companies authorized to handle cargo that flies on commercial passenger aircraft. Modal is IAC NE2112008. IAC paperwork is regulatory and you'll see Modal flagged as IAC on transport documents.

TSA-screened Cargo that's been physically inspected by a TSA-approved process. Required for cargo flying on passenger aircraft. Different from "checked at the airport."

AOG — Aircraft On Ground An aircraft can't fly because it's missing a part or has an issue. "AOG shipments" are the time-critical parts deliveries to fix this. Highest urgency tier.

Cold chain Temperature-controlled transport, usually for pharmaceuticals or biologics. "Pharma cold chain" = 2–8°C. "Frozen" = -20°C and below. "Dry ice" = ~-78°C.

Dry ice Solid CO2, used as a freezing agent. Hazmat in some regulatory frames; affects how the cargo can ship.

POC — Point of Contact The person to call at a pickup or delivery location. Comes up in dispatch all the time.

PO — Purchase Order A vendor's internal reference for the shipment. Modal includes it on the OT360 order so the vendor can match invoices.

Status terms used in the app

Needs your eyes / Needs review The parser ran, output looks like a shipment, but the system isn't confident enough to auto-confirm. Troy needs to look at it.

Sent for review Same as "needs review" but specifically when the parser flagged the email with notes (ambiguous time, missing detail, etc.).

Approved Troy reviewed it and clicked the green button. The order is in OnTime360 with a tracking number.

Sent to OnTime360 Same as Approved. Some emails skip review and auto-confirm — they get this status without Troy clicking.

Skipped / Filtered The parser determined the email wasn't a shipment request — marketing, billing, system mail, etc. No action needed. Available in History.

Rejected Troy looked and decided this isn't a shipment. Different from Skipped: Troy made the call, not the parser.

Couldn't read The parser hit an error mid-way (rare). Often a corrupted attachment or transient LLM hiccup. Re-parse usually fixes it.

Sync failed Order was approved but the push to OnTime360 failed. Order is intact; only the OT360 record didn't get created. Admin can retry.

Reply bounced The confirmation email to the vendor bounced (bad address, spam complaint).

Cap reached / Blocked by cap The system hit its daily LLM budget for this date and skipped parsing. Email is preserved; will retry on next reset (00:00 UTC daily).

System terms

The parser The Claude LLM (Haiku/Sonnet/Opus) that reads emails and extracts structured details.

Cost cascade The strategy of trying the cheap fast model (Haiku) first, escalating to a more expensive one (Sonnet, then Opus) only when needed. Average cost per parse: ~$0.003.

OnTime360 / OT360 Modal's dispatch / order management system. The destination for approved shipment requests.

Postmark The email service Modal uses for both inbound (receiving from vendors) and outbound (auto-confirmations). Lives in front of the parser.

Auto-confirmation When the parser is confident enough about a vendor's request, the system replies with confirmation automatically — no Troy click. Only enabled for vetted vendors.

The deny-list Senders the system never tries to parse — banks, marketing, regulatory alerts, factoring vendors. Saves LLM budget on noise.

The cap A daily ceiling on LLM spending. Default $20/day. Hits it → new emails marked blocked_by_cap and held until midnight UTC.

Vendor / Client Used interchangeably here. The companies whose emails the system recognizes — Alpha Air, Time Matters, etc. ~14 set up at launch.

Operator Troy. The human reviewer who approves / rejects / edits parsed requests.

Superuser / Admin Ethan / ProperTech. Has access to the dashboard, settings, client management, and tuning.

TEST_MODE A flag that, when on, marks all order pushes to OT360 as [TEST] and suppresses outbound emails. Used during development; never on in production.

Acronyms a-glance

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