pp-meta-ads - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: pp-meta-ads description: "The first agent-native Meta Ads CLI with local SQLite history and compound queries the live API cannot answer. Trigger phrases: find creative fatigue on Meta, check Facebook ad performance, which Meta ads should I retire, Meta audience overlap, stuck in learning, use meta-ads, run meta-ads." author: "Dhilip Subramanian" license: "Apache-2.0" argument-hint: " [args] | install cli|mcp" allowed-tools: "Read Bash" metadata: openclaw: requires: bins: - meta-ads-pp-cli install: - kind: go bins: [meta-ads-pp-cli] module: github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/marketing/meta-ads/cmd/meta-ads-pp-cli

Meta Ads — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the meta-ads-pp-cli binary. You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill. If it is missing, install it first:

Install via the Printing Press installer. It defaults binaries to $HOME/.local/bin on macOS/Linux and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\PrintingPress\bin on Windows:
```
npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install meta-ads --cli-only
```
Verify: meta-ads-pp-cli --version
Ensure the reported install directory is on $PATH for the agent/runtime that will invoke this skill.

If the npx install fails (no Node, offline, etc.), fall back to a direct Go install (requires Go 1.26.3 or newer):

go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/marketing/meta-ads/cmd/meta-ads-pp-cli@latest

If --version reports "command not found" after install, the runtime cannot see the binary directory on $PATH. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds.

When to Use This CLI

Use this CLI when you need creative-fatigue diagnostics, audience overlap cartography, learning-phase forensics, or attribution drift detection across Meta ad accounts. Best when paired with a daily sync into the local store so trend queries are instant. Read-only by design — never used to modify campaigns, budgets, or audiences.

Anti-triggers

Do not use this CLI for:

Do not use this CLI to create, pause, modify, or delete campaigns, adsets, ads, audiences, or creatives — it is read-only.
Do not use this CLI for budget management or bid-strategy changes — that is what Meta Ads Manager or facebook-business-sdk are for.
Do not use this CLI for write-side audience uploads — custom audience creation from customer files is out of scope.

Unique Capabilities

These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.

Local state that compounds

fatigue — Detect ads whose CPM is drifting up, frequency is climbing, and CTR is falling across a configurable window.

Use this to decide which ads to retire. Spending on a fatigued creative is the highest-leverage waste in any account.
```
meta-ads-pp-cli fatigue --campaign 23847265 --window 14d --agent
```
decay — Compare a creative's first-impression CTR against its current CTR, with projected dead-date.

Use for retire/refresh decisions on a single creative. The slope and projected dead-date are the deciding factor.
```
meta-ads-pp-cli decay --creative-id 120208734567 --agent
```
overlap — Pairwise overlap percentages across custom audiences, with cannibalization recommendations.

Use when ad strategy is mature and ROAS feels diluted across similar audiences. Surfaces consolidate-or-exclude decisions.
```
meta-ads-pp-cli overlap --audience 23847001 --audience 23847002 --audience 23847003 --agent
```
learning — Surface adsets stuck in algorithmic learning >N days with root-cause hint (budget too low, audience too narrow, events too sparse).

Use when ROAS collapses across multiple adsets simultaneously. Stuck-in-learning adsets eat budget without optimizing.
```
meta-ads-pp-cli learning --account act_4327210487520472 --min-days 7 --agent
```

Forensic queries

reconcile — Per-day diff between Meta-reported account spend and sum-of-insights spend; flags days where attribution drift exceeds threshold.

Use monthly for attribution audits. Surfaces specific days where Meta and insights disagree, usually delayed conversion attribution.
```
meta-ads-pp-cli reconcile --account act_4327210487520472 --since 30d --threshold 5 --agent
```
bottleneck — Highest-spend adsets with worst ROAS, ranked with 'why' column joining learning state and effective status.

Use weekly to decide what to pause. Highest-leverage targets surface first.
```
meta-ads-pp-cli bottleneck --account act_4327210487520472 --limit 10 --agent
```

Account hygiene

stale — Active ads with zero impressions in N days.

Use quarterly for account hygiene. Active ads with zero impressions are usually misconfigured or post-deletion zombies.
```
meta-ads-pp-cli stale --days 90 --agent
```
inventory — Group every ad in an account by effective_status, surface ads where configured status='ACTIVE' but effective_status='WITH_ISSUES' or 'DISAPPROVED'.

Use first thing every morning. DISAPPROVED-but-still-ACTIVE ads cost real spend without delivering.
```
meta-ads-pp-cli inventory --account act_4327210487520472 --by effective_status --agent
```

Command Reference

adcreatives — Manage adcreatives

meta-ads-pp-cli adcreatives <adId> — Get creatives attached to an ad

ads — Ad-level read operations

meta-ads-pp-cli ads <adAccountId> — List ads in an ad account

adsets — Ad set-level read operations

meta-ads-pp-cli adsets <adAccountId> — Returns ad sets with targeting summary, budget, optimization goal, and bid strategy.

campaigns — Campaign-level read operations

meta-ads-pp-cli campaigns <adAccountId> — Returns campaigns with status, objective, and budget metadata.

customaudiences — Manage customaudiences

meta-ads-pp-cli customaudiences <adAccountId> — List custom audiences in an ad account

delivery-estimate — Manage delivery estimate

meta-ads-pp-cli delivery-estimate <adAccountId> — Get reach/impressions delivery estimate

insights — Performance and delivery insights (the creative-fatigue observatory)

meta-ads-pp-cli insights get-account — Returns aggregated insights across the entire ad account.
meta-ads-pp-cli insights get-ad — Ad-level insights with frequency, CPM, CTR over time.
meta-ads-pp-cli insights get-ad-set — Get ad set-level insights
meta-ads-pp-cli insights get-campaign — Get campaign-level insights

me — Manage me

meta-ads-pp-cli me — Returns every ad account the access token has been granted access to.

Finding the right command

When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:

meta-ads-pp-cli which "<capability in your own words>"

which resolves a natural-language capability query to the best matching command from this CLI's curated feature index. Exit code 0 means at least one match; exit code 2 means no confident match — fall back to --help or use a narrower query.

Recipes

Triage creative fatigue across a campaign

meta-ads-pp-cli fatigue --campaign 23847265 --window 14d --agent --select ad_id,ad_name,cpm_slope,frequency_now,ctr_slope,verdict

Returns one row per ad with CPM slope, current frequency, CTR slope, and a retire/keep verdict. Narrow output by selecting only the fatigue-relevant fields to keep agent context bounded.

Find audience cannibalization risk

meta-ads-pp-cli overlap --audience 23847001 --audience 23847002 --audience 23847003 --agent

Returns pairwise overlap percentages and a recommendation per pair. Anything above 30% is a candidate for consolidation or exclusion.

Spot stuck-in-learning adsets

meta-ads-pp-cli learning --account act_4327210487520472 --min-days 7 --agent

Surfaces adsets where learning_stage_info has been LEARNING for >7 days. The 'why' column hints at budget/audience/event sparsity.

Daily inventory roll-up first thing

meta-ads-pp-cli inventory --account act_4327210487520472 --by effective_status --agent

Groups every ad by effective_status. The DISAPPROVED-but-configured-ACTIVE class is the highest-leverage daily finding.

Monthly spend reconciliation

meta-ads-pp-cli reconcile --account act_4327210487520472 --since 30d --threshold 5 --agent

Per-day diff between Meta-reported account spend and sum-of-insights spend over the last 30 days. Flags days where drift exceeds 5%.

Auth Setup

Authenticate with a Meta access token in the META_ACCESS_TOKEN env var. Generate from Graph API Explorer (User Access Token, 1-2h lifespan) for ad-hoc use, or Business Manager System Users (no expiry) for repeat use. Grant ads_read scope only — never ads_management or any write permission. Token discovery via /me/adaccounts lists every account accessible to the token; no account ID configuration required.

Run meta-ads-pp-cli doctor to verify setup.

Agent Mode

Add --agent to any command. Expands to: --json --compact --no-input --no-color --yes.

Pipeable — JSON on stdout, errors on stderr
Filterable — --select keeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:
```
meta-ads-pp-cli ads mock-value --agent --select id,name,status
```
Previewable — --dry-run shows the request without sending
Offline-friendly — sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
Non-interactive — never prompts, every input is a flag
Read-only — do not use this CLI for create, update, delete, publish, comment, upvote, invite, order, send, or other mutating requests

Response envelope

Commands that read from the local store or the API wrap output in a provenance envelope:

{
  "meta": {"source": "live" | "local", "synced_at": "...", "reason": "..."},
  "results": <data>
}

Parse .results for data and .meta.source to know whether it's live or local. A human-readable N results (live) summary is printed to stderr only when stdout is a terminal AND no machine-format flag (--json, --csv, --compact, --quiet, --plain, --select) is set — piped/agent consumers and explicit-format runs get pure JSON on stdout.

Agent Feedback

When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it:

meta-ads-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
meta-ads-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
meta-ads-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10

Entries are stored locally at ~/.local/share/meta-ads-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl. They are never POSTed unless META_ADS_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or META_ADS_FEEDBACK_AUTO_SEND=true. Default behavior is local-only.

Write what surprised you, not a bug report. Short, specific, one line: that is the part that compounds.

Output Delivery

Every command accepts --deliver <sink>. The output goes to the named sink in addition to (or instead of) stdout, so agents can route command results without hand-piping. Three sinks are supported:

Sink	Effect
`stdout`	Default; write to stdout only
`file:<path>`	Atomically write output to `<path>` (tmp + rename)
`webhook:<url>`	POST the output body to the URL (`application/json` or `application/x-ndjson` when `--compact`)

Unknown schemes are refused with a structured error naming the supported set. Webhook failures return non-zero and log the URL + HTTP status on stderr.

Named Profiles

A profile is a saved set of flag values, reused across invocations. Use it when a scheduled agent calls the same command every run with the same configuration - HeyGen's "Beacon" pattern.

meta-ads-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
meta-ads-pp-cli --profile briefing ads mock-value
meta-ads-pp-cli profile list --json
meta-ads-pp-cli profile show briefing
meta-ads-pp-cli profile delete briefing --yes

Explicit flags always win over profile values; profile values win over defaults. agent-context lists all available profiles under available_profiles so introspecting agents discover them at runtime.

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success
2	Usage error (wrong arguments)
3	Resource not found
4	Authentication required
5	API error (upstream issue)
7	Rate limited (wait and retry)
10	Config error

Argument Parsing

Parse $ARGUMENTS:

Empty, help, or --help → show meta-ads-pp-cli --help output
Starts with install → ends with mcp → MCP installation; otherwise → see Prerequisites above
Anything else → Direct Use (execute as CLI command with --agent)

MCP Server Installation

Install the MCP server:

go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/marketing/meta-ads/cmd/meta-ads-pp-mcp@latest

claude mcp add meta-ads-pp-mcp -- meta-ads-pp-mcp

Verify: claude mcp list

Direct Use

Check if installed: which meta-ads-pp-cli If not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill).
Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above.

Execute with the --agent flag:

meta-ads-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent

If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help: meta-ads-pp-cli <command> --help.