The pickup checklist

The pickup checklist is a one-page PDF the workbench generates from any sealed vetting. It is the dock-side form a driver, dispatcher, or shipper's clerk fills in at the moment the truck shows up to take the load.

It is the most boring document in this product. That's the point.

What it is, exactly

A US-Letter PDF, eight checklist items, blank signature lines at the bottom. The header carries the carrier you vetted, the MC number, and an optional load reference you typed when you issued it. There is no TDPort branding on the face of the document.

The items cover the things a negligent-hiring case routinely turns on:

• The truck's DOT number matches the carrier you booked.
• The driver's CDL is valid and matches the driver named to you.
• The current insurance card is present and the limits match what you contracted for.
• The trailer pull is the one you booked (no surprise subcontract).
• Photos of truck and trailer were taken.
• GPS / timestamp at the dock.
• Driver signature.
• Receiver signature.

What problem it solves

Double-brokering. A broker vets Carrier A on Monday, dispatches the load on Tuesday, and the truck that shows up belongs to Carrier B — because Carrier A has resold the load to Carrier B without telling anyone. Carrier B is uninsured, unvetted, and about to drive your freight cross-country.

The vetting on /vet proves you checked Carrier A. The pickup checklist proves the truck that picked up the load belonged to Carrier A. Without the second piece, the first piece can be attacked in court as "they checked the carrier, but the carrier they checked wasn't the one that crashed."

How issuance works

From a sealed vetting, click Issue checklist. A modal asks for the load reference (optional) and an email address (optional). You then have three options:

• Download — the PDF lands on your machine. You print it and hand it to the driver, or you email it later through your own workflow.
• Send — TDPort sends the PDF as an email attachment from noreply@tdport.io, signed under your display name, to the address you provided. We use the same SMTP path that magic-link signin emails go through; no new SMS gateway, no Twilio.
• Cancel — closes the modal. Nothing is issued.

The disclaimer that TDPort is not the vetting agent (you are) lives in the modal, not on the PDF face. The PDF stays neutral so it works as your working document.

What happens to the filled-in form

That part is your workflow.

If you want to attach the filled-in PDF back to the vetting record on the proof chain, the workbench's workspace panel already supports document uploads: drag the scanned form into the workspace, click Seal, and a second sealed record links to the first. The cryptography that backs the vetting cert is the same cryptography that backs any other document you attach.

If you'd rather file the form in your TMS, your email, or a shoebox, that's fine. The point of the checklist is the dock- side moment of verification. What happens after is up to you.

What it doesn't do

• It is not a binding contract. It documents what was seen at pickup. It doesn't change the broker-carrier agreement you already have in place.
• It doesn't talk to FMCSA in real time. A driver could hand-write whatever DOT number they want; the value of the form is the photo and signature beside it, not the typed number itself.
• It doesn't notify TDPort. Issuing a checklist doesn't put anything on the proof chain. The only thing on the chain at that moment is the original vetting cert. The filled-in form goes on the chain only if you choose to upload and seal it.

When you'd choose not to issue one

Most of the time, you would. It's a 30-second download and a single conversation at the dock. The cases where it doesn't help are narrow: digital LTL networks where the carrier and driver are pre-cleared by the platform; pickups you're already attending in person; loads where the receiver does their own verification before signing the BOL.

For everything else, the documented dock-side moment is the cheapest part of the paper trail.

Earlier design (deferred)

An earlier round of design considered a live driver-mobile flow — SMS link to the driver, real-time DOT photo capture, OCR match against the booked carrier. It was overbuilt for the broker's actual need (proof of pickup, not data capture) and created legal exposure around biometric handling we didn't need to take on. The PDF checklist is the lean version that ships today. The earlier design lives in docs/PICKUP-CHECK.md as a v2 path if the demand surfaces.