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Trade Reference Explorer Changelog

This page tracks notable changes to the trade reference explorer, which is in Beta. It covers updates from the initial Beta release in June 2025 through May 2026, grouped by theme rather than by release date. Within each theme, entries are listed oldest first.

Launch and major milestones

The trade reference explorer launched as a Beta applet for HS code reference and duty exploration, then expanded through V1 and V2 milestones with USMCA, country of origin, duty calculator, PGA, and entry calculator capabilities.

  • Jun 2025 — Initial release of the trade reference explorer as a USMCA and HS duty demo applet for exploring HS reference data, USMCA qualification, and duty estimates.
  • Aug 2025 — Major upgrade delivering duty calculator v1, an expanded USMCA calculator, and an initial Partner Government Agency (PGA) flow.
  • Aug 2025 — V1 milestone bringing together country of origin v1, USMCA v2, duty calculator v1, PGA v0.1, and a first version of the entry calculator in a unified workflow.

HS code lookup and reference data coverage

HS reference data moved to live lookups so HS codes, validity, and tariff details stay current. Validity warnings now flag expired or unrecognized HS codes during entry preparation.

  • Jul 2025 — HS reference data now pulls directly from the latest Altana reference data, so HS code, tariff, and program data stays current.
  • Apr 2026 — Surfaced HS code validity warnings in the tariff workflow so you see when an entered HS code is expired, invalid for the selected year, or otherwise unrecognized.

Country and program coverage

The trade reference explorer expanded from US-only duty data to 122 countries, added Mexico and Canada tariff logic, completed the country of origin dropdown to the full ISO-3166 list, and pulled in Liechtenstein and Monaco as customs union members.

  • Mar 2026 — Added Liechtenstein and Monaco to the supported countries dropdown so customs-union jurisdictions surface alongside their parent customs territories.
  • Mar 2026 — Removed non-country aggregates (EU, EZ) from the entry duty calculator country dropdown so you only see selectable importing countries.
  • Apr 2026 — Expanded the tariff calculator from a US-only model to 122 countries, enabling duty estimation against most major importing jurisdictions.
  • Apr 2026 — Added Mexico and Canada tariff logic alongside the existing US treatment so North American duty estimates can be compared side by side.
  • May 2026 — Country of origin dropdown now shows the full ISO-3166 list instead of a truncated subset, so all origin jurisdictions are selectable.

Duty calculator and tariff outputs

Refinements to what duty and tariff results show, including correct quota flags, deduplicated Special Program Indicator and Free Trade Agreement programs, accurate Section 232 automotive penalty filtering, and consistent calculations across the API and the UI.

  • Oct 2025 — Aligned the duty calculator so the frontend always renders the same calculation the backend returns, removing mismatches between displayed and underlying duty values.
  • Oct 2025 — Fixed the duty calculator so the quota indicator only appears on entries that are actually subject to a quota.
  • Jan 2026 — Deduplicated Special Program Indicator and Free Trade Agreement program rows in the duty calculator so each eligible program shows once.
  • Feb 2026 — Moved the Unit Count field into the main entry form and added a dynamic unit-type label so the requested unit (for example, kilograms, dozens, or square meters) is always visible.
  • Feb 2026 — Section 232 automotive and medium/heavy-duty vehicle penalties now apply only to entries classified for automotive use, removing false-positive penalty additions on non-automotive goods.
  • Feb 2026 — Honored the user-supplied loading date in duty queries instead of overwriting it with the as-of date, so historical and forward-dated entries return the correct rates.
  • Mar 2026 — Free trade agreement selection now flows through cached duty calculations, so changing the agreement updates the result without stale cache hits.

Country of origin and USMCA workflows

The country of origin and USMCA flows became more responsive through streaming results, deep linking, side-by-side duty comparison across countries, and a long-format table layout for easier scanning.

  • Sep 2025 — Country of origin and USMCA results now stream in progressively as they compute, so you see partial data immediately instead of waiting for the full query to finish.
  • Sep 2025 — Reorganized the trade reference explorer results into a long-format table so multi-country, multi-program comparisons are easier to read and export.
  • Sep 2025 — Added deep linking to specific trade reference explorer states and side-by-side duty comparison across multiple importing countries.

Sidebar, page chrome, and embedding

Refinements to the sidebar and page chrome so the trade reference explorer reads as a first-class workspace, can be embedded in partner surfaces, and reflects current Altana product naming.

  • Jun 2025 — Restructured the trade reference explorer page so the browser tab and in-app header show a proper page title.
  • Dec 2025 — Updated in-app copy in the trade reference explorer and its sidebar from prior Atlas and Copilot names to Altana and Agent.
  • Jan 2026 — Added embedded-session authentication handling so the trade reference explorer can be loaded inside partner and customer applications with single sign-on context.

Performance, reliability, and saved workspaces

Sustained investment in responsiveness and reliability — asynchronous queries, distributed caching, retries on tariff timeouts, reduced lock contention, and faster saved workspaces — so the trade reference explorer stays usable on heavy entries.

  • Sep 2025 — Sped up loading of saved trade reference workspaces so previously prepared entries reopen significantly faster.
  • Dec 2025 — Reduced database lock contention on duty calculations so concurrent users no longer slow each other down.
  • Dec 2025 — Fixed an infinite loop and placeholder-value bugs that could prevent results from loading, and hardened the cache against missing provenance data.
  • Jan 2026 — Migrated the trade reference explorer to asynchronous reference-data queries with a connection pool, improving responsiveness under concurrent load.
  • Jan 2026 — Added a distributed cache so repeat HS, country, and duty lookups return faster across sessions and users.
  • Apr 2026 — Added automatic retries and a fallback cache for slow tariff queries so transient timeouts no longer fail the request.
  • May 2026 — Reduced UI stalls during refinement reads by routing them through the shared connection pool, keeping the trade reference explorer responsive while results compute.

The trade reference explorer is in Beta. Behavior continues to evolve; this page is updated as new countries, years, and reference data ship.