Meta ad account performance rules

Account rules propose a pause or daily-budget change when a target meets your counted-arrival and cost conditions. Create a rule under Settings → Action policy → Account rules, or through MCP. New rules start disabled; enabling is a separate decision. In Ask, every proposed change waits for approval. In Full, admitted pauses and budget decreases can run automatically, but rule-generated budget increases always require human approval. Creating or editing a rule never changes Meta during that request.

Before you create a rule

Connect the intended Meta ad account and check its retained inventory and metrics.
Install Signals and verify counted arrivals. Rule comparisons use counted arrivals, not purchases, unique visitors or Meta-attributed conversions.
Review the workspace’s Action policy. Only the team owner can change rules in the dashboard; other members can review them.
For MCP, use the production server and an authorized Workspace key. Read keys can list and inspect rules; creating, editing or enabling requires Write and an active grant for that operation. Older account-bound keys keep their restriction. Never put a key in a prompt or source control.

The rule tools are absent from the synthetic sandbox. Their names and inputs appear in the published MCP server card.

What can a rule change?

Rule action	Target levels	Minimum target arrivals	Budget setting
`pause`	Ad or ad set	At least 50	Omit `budget_change_percent`.
`increase_budget`	Ad set or campaign	At least 100	Integer change from 1–50%; always requires approval.
`decrease_budget`	Ad set or campaign	At least 50	Integer change from 1–50%.

Budget rules apply to daily budgets and remain subject to current provider state and policy. Rules do not resume targets, change lifetime budgets or create ads. Both conditions must hold over the last three complete days in the account timezone, with UTC as the fallback:

The target reaches your minimum_counted_arrivals.
Its cost per counted arrival is at_least or at_most your cost_ratio times the whole account’s cost per counted arrival.

The account also needs at least 50 counted arrivals. The ratio must be 0.10–10.00 with at most two decimal places. For example, at_least with 1.5 matches a target costing at least 1.5 times the account average. This comparison includes the target in the account baseline; it differs from the Resume outcome’s rest-of-account comparison. It does not establish causal harm or a performance forecast.

Create and enable a rule in the dashboard

Open Settings → Action policy, then Account rules. Confirm the workspace and account.
Enter a Name, choose the Account, Action and Level, and set the arrival threshold and cost ratio. Budget actions also need Budget change (%).
Click Create rule. Confirm the saved rule says Disabled, and review its complete condition.
Click Enable rule only when you intend scheduled evaluation to propose matching changes under the approval behavior above. Use Disable rule to stop future evaluation.

Use Edit rule → Save rule to change its name or complete definition. The account cannot be changed after creation. Revision history preserves earlier definitions and their author type; editing does not rewrite a stored evaluation’s revision. Disabling a rule does not cancel proposals already created; review those separately in Inbox.

Configure the same rule through MCP

Use these tools with their own grant permissions:

Tool	Access	Result
`actions.rules.list`	Read or Write	Paginated rules visible to the key; does not evaluate them.
`actions.rules.show`	Read or Write	One rule, revisions and recent evaluation runs.
`actions.rules.create`	Write	Stores a disabled rule.
`actions.rules.update`	Write	Edits the definition or explicitly enables/disables the rule.

For actions.rules.create, replace internal Plainrouter account ID 91 with your account’s ID. This field is platform_ad_account_id, rather than account_id or an external Meta act_… ID. Example arguments for a disabled pause rule:

{
  "name": "Pause costly ad sets",
  "platform_ad_account_id": 91,
  "definition": {
    "target_level": "ad_set",
    "action": "pause",
    "minimum_counted_arrivals": 50,
    "cost_comparison": "at_least",
    "cost_ratio": 1.5
  }
}

Creation returns rule. Save its id and confirm enabled: false, account, window and current_revision. Do not send enabled on creation. To enable it, call actions.rules.update with the returned rule ID; the ID below is an illustrative placeholder:

{
  "rule_id": "01k6n000000000000000000000",
  "enabled": true
}

Use enabled: false to disable. A name or definition edit appends an immutable revision; when editing definition, supply all its required fields. Enabling or disabling alone does not add a revision. The three-day window is fixed, so omit window and window_days.

How do I verify evaluation and execution?

Evaluation is scheduled hourly. It reads retained metrics and arrivals, records a window and revision, then proposes eligible matches through normal Actions admission. Saving a rule is not an evaluation or proof of a Meta change. Call actions.rules.show with rule_id. Inspect enabled, suspended_at, suspended_reason, current_revision and runs. Each run records its window, timezone, status, reason, account totals and per-target decisions. Reads return the latest five runs; each run includes at most 100 decisions, with decisions_truncated indicating more. For lists, page starts at 1, per_page defaults to 25 and accepts 1–100; continue with rules.next_page_arguments until it is null. A decision marked proposed includes action_batch_id. Follow that batch in Inbox or the Actions API; confirm approval where required, the execution receipt and exact provider verification. A matching rule or proposed batch is not Landed.

Why did a rule not produce another change?

Observation	Meaning and next step
Disabled or no matching decision	Confirm the saved definition, account, completed dates and both conditions. An empty decision list is not proof of zero activity.
`deferred` / `metrics_pending`, `arrivals_unavailable` or `inventory_unavailable`	Required data is unavailable or lacks completed-day freshness. Check inventory timestamps and Signals; missing data is not zero.
`conflict` / `different_actions_match`	Different actions match the same target. Resolve the overlapping rules. For the same action, the oldest matching rule is selected and others are `superseded`.
`target_held`, `outcome_pending` or `target_cooling`	An outstanding management proposal or later outcome holds the target. After an outcome check, cooldown lasts until the start of the fourth following account-local day. Follow the existing batch.
`skipped` with a policy or provider reason	Read the recorded reason. Enabling a rule cannot bypass admission, unavailable provider state or the execution kill switch.
`suspended_reason: "two_lost_actions"`	The rule’s two most recent judged actions were both lost. Inspect those outcomes and leave the rule disabled while reviewing it. Toggling `enabled` alone does not clear suspension.

Rules and system-generated inverse proposals do not create recursive lost-outcome inverse chains. For other eligible actions, see what happens after a lost outcome.

Get started

Signals

Actions

Reference

Legacy Launcher

Meta ad account performance rules

Before you create a rule

What can a rule change?

Create and enable a rule in the dashboard

Configure the same rule through MCP

How do I verify evaluation and execution?

Why did a rule not produce another change?

​Before you create a rule

​What can a rule change?

​Create and enable a rule in the dashboard

​Configure the same rule through MCP

​How do I verify evaluation and execution?

​Why did a rule not produce another change?

Before you create a rule

What can a rule change?

Create and enable a rule in the dashboard

Configure the same rule through MCP

How do I verify evaluation and execution?

Why did a rule not produce another change?