Inspiration
Carbon project teams work with monitoring reports, meter logs, agreements, and calculations that all need to line up before independent verification. Finding gaps late can cost time and money. We wanted to make that preparation clearer and more manageable, while keeping the evidence behind every check easy to inspect.
What it does
CarbonFlow Preflight helps teams prepare project documentation and data for independent verification. It organizes evidence by project and monitoring period, extracts values with source references, checks completeness and consistency against rules, and surfaces findings for human review. Teams can use the results to prepare a preflight report and evidence package.
It supports readiness work; it does not certify projects or replace an independent verifier.
How we built it
We designed the product around an evidence-backed workflow: upload documents, extract values with page references, run versioned checks, review findings, and prepare reports. The interface includes project and monitoring-period views, a document evidence viewer, a findings queue, run history, and a sample report.
For document processing, we explored a hybrid approach: native parsing for digital PDFs and spreadsheets, with OCR for scanned documents. We also investigated layout-aware parsing and structured LLM extraction, with the goal of keeping extracted values traceable and reviewable. The deployed site demonstrates this workflow with sample project data.
Challenges we ran into
Carbon project documents vary widely in format and quality. Tables, scanned pages, inconsistent units, and mismatched reporting periods make reliable extraction difficult. We also had to think carefully about the boundary between AI-assisted reading and deterministic validation: AI can help locate and explain information, but important checks need clear rules and human review.
Another challenge is keeping project details, findings, and reports consistent so users can trust what they see.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We’re proud to have shaped a complex preparation process into a clear workflow, with findings connected to evidence and a sample report that shows how issues can be presented to a project team. The product also makes its role explicit: it helps teams prepare for verification without claiming to make the verifier’s decision.
What we learned
Traceability is central to trust. A result is more useful when users can see where it came from, which rule flagged it, and how a reviewer handled it. We also learned that extraction quality alone is not enough: methodology coverage, consistent project data, reproducible runs, and clear review history matter just as much.
What’s next for CarbonFlow Preflight
Next, we want to validate one complete workflow against real, permissioned project evidence: from upload and cited extraction through rule checks, human review, reruns, and report export. We also plan to strengthen access controls, make project and finding data consistent throughout the product, and clearly document which methodologies and checks are supported.
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