Meta ad builder skill

Meta ad builder

Turn a finished creative — typically the output of a generative-AI skill in this workspace — into a live Meta ad. The skill covers three phases: research (optional) → copy → deploy. It talks to the Meta Marketing API directly via ported, parameterized Python scripts.

Meta credentials required before any deploy work. Run bash scripts/check-meta-env.sh first — before uploading a creative, before creating anything in the ad account, before the first Meta call of any phase. On a non-zero exit, stop and ask the user for what it printed. It has already uncommented the two required lines in .env and opened the file, so the ask is "paste these two values", not "go find the docs". Read its Live-app warning out to them: a development-mode app passes every check and then fails at ad creation. Until the check passes, nothing is uploaded, no partial ad or creative exists and nothing is charged — which is exactly why it runs first, since a deploy that dies halfway orphans uploaded assets in a live ad account. This key is deliberately lazy: the pack asks for it here, at the moment someone wants to publish, and never during setup.

When to use this skill

Trigger on phrases like:

• "deploy this video to Meta" / "publish this as a Facebook ad"
• "build/launch a Meta ad" / "push this creative into <ad set>"
• "create a Meta ad with this image and copy"
• "pull my top-performing ads" / "what are my best ads by ROAS"
• "research competitor ads" / "pull <brand>'s ads from the Ad Library"

Do not use this skill to generate creative — that's pixar-ad, claymation-ad, chatgpt-image-ad, nano-banana-image-ad, generate-youtube-thumbnail, etc. Do not use it to write ad-table rows. This skill is the direct Meta Marketing API deployment step.

Read order

1. This file — workflow, decision tree, safety rules.
2. prompting/copy-guide.md — the 5-body / 5-title / 3-description frameworks and the --copy-file JSON shape.
3. reference/deploy-patterns.md — creative spec mechanics, video polling, retry, failure modes.
4. reference/meta-api-cheatsheet.md — the full Meta Marketing API reference (campaigns, ad sets, ads, enums, gotchas, Ad Library). Consult as needed; don't read end-to-end.

Prerequisites

REST key required. A Novoads MCP connector is not a substitute. If NOVOADS_API_KEY is missing or still the placeholder, stop before any generation work and tell the user: "Before continuing, create an API key at https://novoads.ai/dashboard/settings?tab=api and paste it into .env." That holds even when mcp__novoads__* tools are connected and authenticated in the session. Never call mcp__novoads__* tools from this repo's workflows: they are a different surface with different behavior, including the units they quote costs in. Repo installs verify with ./scripts/check-novoads-env.sh; a solo install checks NOVOADS_API_KEY in the environment.

Pack version. Every /v1 response carries X-Novoads-Pack-Version; mention a newer pack at https://github.com/novoads/agent-skills only when that header names a version NEWER than this file's metadata.packVersion — equal or older is nothing to say, and it is never a reason to stop.

The Meta app must be published (Live) — check this first

A development-mode app cannot create ad creatives. POST /act_*/ads fails with code 100 / subcode 1885183 ("Ads creative post was created by an app that is in development mode"). Every other prerequisite can be perfect and the deploy still cannot succeed.

Allowlisting the ad account under App settings → Advanced → Authorized ad account IDs does not work around it — tested live on 2026-08-03 and it does not help. Publishing the app is the only fix: App Dashboard → toggle the app from Development to Live.

No Graph endpoint reports app mode for a user token, so check-meta-env.sh cannot test this for you. Ask the user to confirm the app is Live before the first deploy against a given app.

Everything else

• Env (in .env — see your repo's .env.example):

  • META_ACCESS_TOKEN (required) — long-lived token with ads_management scope
  • META_AD_ACCOUNT_ID (required) — with or without the act_ prefix
  • META_PAGE_ID, META_IG_USER_ID, META_PIXEL_ID (optional defaults for deploy)
  • META_API_VERSION (optional, default v23.0)

• Python deps — install into a virtualenv:

  python3 -m venv .venv-meta
  .venv-meta/bin/python -m pip install -r scripts/requirements.txt
  # then run the scripts with .venv-meta/bin/python, not bare python3
  

  Bare python3 -m pip install fails on a Homebrew python with error: externally-managed-environment (PEP 668), and macOS is this repo's first target. Do not suggest --break-system-packages; use the venv.

• A target ad set that already exists. The skill deploys ads into an existing ad set — it does not create campaigns or ad sets. If the user needs a new ad set, create it in Ads Manager or via the cheatsheet §3–§4 first.

• The finished creative on disk — an image or video file path. Chat-pasted files are not accessible; ask the user for a real path.

Run bash scripts/check-meta-env.sh to verify credentials before anything else. It checks the token, the ads_management scope, ad-account reachability and the Page — a token that passes /me but carries no ads scopes is a real failure mode it now catches.

When credentials are missing it sets the user up rather than only complaining. It uncomments the two required lines in .env (they ship commented out, and a token typed onto a commented line fails the next run identically — the most likely way this path breaks in practice), opens the file, and prints where each value comes from plus the Live-app warning. Relay what it printed; it is written to be read out. It leaves the four optional keys commented, never touches a line the user has already edited, and exits 1 either way.

Workflow

Phase 1 — Research (optional, when copy should model winners)

# Rank the account's ads and pull the winning copy
python scripts/pull-top-ads.py --date-preset last_30d --min-spend 100 --limit 15

# Pull a competitor's ads from the Ad Library
python scripts/pull-competitor-ads.py --pages "BrandName" --limit 50

Both write JSON under OUTPUT_BASE (or ./outputs/meta-ads/). Read the top-ad copy fields to identify winning hook/proof/CTA patterns before writing new copy.

Phase 2 — Copy

Write a copy.json following copy-guide.md: 5 bodies (one per framework angle), 5 titles, 3 descriptions. If Phase 1 ran, mirror the voice and patterns of the winners — new creative + proven copy DNA. Save copy.json somewhere under outputs/ so it isn't committed.

Phase 3 — Deploy

Always dry-run first — it prints the creative payload in full (no truncation) plus a dedicated Advantage+ enhancement section, and makes no API calls:

.venv-meta/bin/python scripts/deploy-ad.py --dry-run \
  --adset-id <AD_SET_ID> --copy-file copy.json --link <DESTINATION_URL> \
  --image path/to/creative.png

Review the payload with the user, then deploy for real:

.venv-meta/bin/python scripts/deploy-ad.py \
  --adset-id <AD_SET_ID> --copy-file copy.json --link <DESTINATION_URL> \
  --video clip-a.mp4 --video clip-b.mp4 --cta SIGN_UP --pixel-id <PIXEL_ID>

• --image / --video are repeatable — each becomes its own ad in the ad set.
• Every ad is created PAUSED. Tell the user to review and un-pause in Meta Ads Manager. The skill never launches a spending ad automatically.
• Results are written to deployment_results.json under OUTPUT_BASE: ads (created), failures (each with the verbatim Meta error), orphans, and a summary count.

Read the exit code

deploy-ad.py exits 1 if any requested ad failed, and prints each failure with Meta's own code / subcode / message / fbtrace_id. It no longer prints a DONE. line on a run that created nothing. If you are wrapping this script, branch on the exit code — do not parse stdout for success.

Advantage+ enhancements and burned-in captions

The dry run lists every degrees_of_freedom_spec enrollment Meta will apply, with a one-line note on what each one does to a shipped creative. Read that section aloud to the user before a first deploy — several enrollments modify the creative, and the defaults are opt-in.

By default the script sets --burned-in-captions, which forces to OPT_OUT the enrollments that would deface a creative with text baked into the pixels (video_uncrop, video_auto_crop, video_filtering, creative_stickers, reveal_details_over_time, show_summary, show_destination_blurbs, and the text_extraction customizations) plus text_translation, which rewrites copy the user approved verbatim. Everything this workspace produces carries burned-in text — captions on video from caption-video, typography on images from the image-ad skills — so this is the right default here.

Pass --no-burned-in-captions to send Meta's full enrollment instead. Say so explicitly when you do; it is the user's creative that gets modified.

Decision tree

User intent	Phases
"Deploy this creative to Meta" + copy provided	Phase 3 only
"Build a Meta ad, write the copy too"	Phase 2 → 3
"Make ads modeled on my winners"	Phase 1 → 2 → 3
"What are my best ads / competitor research"	Phase 1 only

Safety rules

• Ads deploy PAUSED. Never add an --active override or un-pause ads without an explicit user instruction. Confirm the user knows the ads are paused.
• Dry-run before every real deploy. Show the payload; get a go-ahead.
• Confirm the target ad set and destination URL with the user before deploying — an ad in the wrong ad set spends against the wrong budget.
• Deploying ads is a shared-state, money-adjacent action. Treat the live deploy-ad.py run as something to confirm, not assume.
• The skill creates ads only — it does not create or edit campaigns, ad sets, budgets, or audiences. Those stay manual.

Quirks and pitfalls

• App in development mode → code 100 / subcode 1885183. See Prerequisites. This is the single most likely reason a first deploy fails.

• Video processing is async. deploy-ad.py polls the uploaded video until Meta finishes processing before creating the ad — a video deploy can take a few minutes. See deploy-patterns.md.

• Transient OAuthException (code 2). Retried automatically with backoff.

• act_ prefix is added automatically if missing from META_AD_ACCOUNT_ID.

• A failed run can leave uploaded assets behind. The video/image upload succeeds before ad creation is attempted, so a rejected ad orphans the asset. deploy-ad.py prints every orphan with a ready-to-run curl cleanup line and records them under orphans in deployment_results.json. It does not delete anything automatically — deleting objects in a live ad account is the user's call. Offer the cleanup commands; don't run them unprompted.

• link_urls is sent for image ads only — this is deliberate, not a bug. build_image_creative puts link_urls in asset_feed_spec; build_video_creative does not. A live video deploy (2026-08-03) confirmed the ad resolves its destination correctly without it, carrying the link through object_story_spec.video_data.call_to_action instead. Leave the asymmetry alone; it is verified working.

• TEXT_LIQUIDITY does not read back on the live creative. The skill sends text_transformation_types: ["TEXT_LIQUIDITY"] and degrees_of_freedom_type: "USER_ENROLLED", but reading the created creative back does not show either field (verified 2026-08-03). The functional part does persist — the 5/5/3 asset feed was present on the live ad. Verify by asset feed, not by flag:

  curl -s -G "https://graph.facebook.com/v23.0/<AD_ID>" \
    --data-urlencode "fields=creative{asset_feed_spec,degrees_of_freedom_spec}" \
    --data-urlencode "access_token=$META_ACCESS_TOKEN" | python3 -m json.tool
  

  Confirm asset_feed_spec.bodies/titles/descriptions carry the counts you sent. Do not claim multi-variant text rotation is enabled on the basis of the flag you sent — say what read back.

• Account-specific data stays out of git. All output routes through outputs/ (gitignored): ad IDs, pulled spend/revenue, competitor data.

• Special Ad Categories (credit, employment, housing, social issues) change ad-set targeting rules — flag to the user; see cheatsheet §3.5.

Cost note

The Meta Marketing API itself is free to call. Ad spend is real money — but because every ad deploys PAUSED, nothing spends until the user un-pauses it in Ads Manager. There are no per-call credits to estimate.