Budget Pacing

PREREQUISITE: Read ../_mureo-shared/SKILL.md for auth, security rules, output format, and Tool Selection (Read/Write on Code, mureo_strategy_* / mureo_state_* MCP on Desktop / Cowork).

Tool names below refer to the built-in platforms; a namespaced variant (see _mureo-shared → Namespaced built-in variants) is used with its prefix substituted.

Track month-to-date spend against the monthly budget target, project the month-end landing, and raise pace alerts so the month neither blows the budget nor leaves it unspent.

This is trajectory management, not allocation. If the question is "how should I split budget across campaigns?" that is /budget-rebalance. This skill answers "at this rate, where does total spend land, and how do I steer it onto the target?" — cross-reference /budget-rebalance when the fix is reallocation rather than a total-spend nudge.

Prerequisites

• STRATEGY.md and STATE.json must exist (run the onboard skill first)

Steps

Before you start: Run the Diagnostic preamble from ../_mureo-shared/SKILL.md — load learning insights (mureo_learning_insights_get) and consult advisors (mureo_consult_advisor) before drawing conclusions.

0. Establish today: call mureo_state_get first, on every host (including Claude Code, where you would otherwise Read the file) and take server_now from its response — ISO 8601 with UTC offset, e.g. 2026-07-28T10:12:33+09:00. Pacing is date arithmetic, so this is load-bearing: server_now's date is the only source of the current date — it fixes the pacing month, today's date, and therefore every elapsed/remaining-day count below. Do not shell out (this skill must run in Bash-less headless hosts) and do not read the date off STATE.json: last_synced_at, reports.*.period and action_log timestamps are history, and pacing against a stale month silently mis-states the landing. Never write server_now into STATE.json — it is a response field, and a persisted copy becomes tomorrow's stale "today".
1. Load context: Read STRATEGY.md (Operation Mode, ## Guardrails, any ## Custom: Monthly Budget section, Goal sections) and STATE.json (the same mureo_state_get response from step 0 on MCP hosts).
2. Discover platforms: Identify all configured platforms from STATE.json platforms. Also include any hosted official-MCP connector present in the session (e.g. TikTok, key tiktok_ads) and mcp__mureo__<plugin>_* plugin platforms — drive each via its own tools, best-effort; see ../_mureo-shared/SKILL.md → Hosted-connector platforms and Plugin platforms.
3. Determine the monthly budget target — in this precedence:
   • ## Custom: Monthly Budget section in STRATEGY.md, if present — the operator's explicit monthly figure (and optional per-platform sub-targets). This wins; it is the intended monthly spend, not a safety ceiling.
   • Sum of the per-campaign monthly budgets, on platforms whose campaigns carry a monthly budget of their own — read them from STATE.json platforms.*.campaigns[].monthly_budget. Google Ads and Meta campaigns do not have one (they are configured per day), so they contribute nothing here rather than a multiplied-out daily figure. This is what the platforms are configured to spend: label it that way, never as the agreed target — a configured ¥300,000 routinely sits above a ¥200,000 agreement, and where both exist the difference is worth showing. Only sum a complete set: if a campaign on such a platform has no monthly budget you can read, or the platform holds no campaigns, or its last collection failed (not_collected), say the set is incomplete and fall through to the next rung — summing three of five campaigns is a smaller number, not a smaller budget. Say which gap it is, because the fixes differ: no campaign carrying a monthly budget at all means that platform's plugin is not writing them (report it; it will not fix itself), while some missing or none synced means re-run the platform sync, and a failed collection points at that platform's not_collected note.
   • ## Guardrails → max_total_daily_budget — a daily ceiling. Multiply by the number of days in the current calendar month to derive an implied monthly cap. Treat this as a ceiling, not a target (it is the most you may spend per day, not the plan) — say so in the output, and prefer it only when no explicit Monthly Budget exists.
   • None of those present → ask the operator for the monthly budget target (total, and optionally per-platform). Offer to persist it as a new ## Custom: Monthly Budget section so future pacing runs are self-serve, e.g.:

     ## Custom: Monthly Budget
     - total: 300000
     - google_ads: 180000
     - meta_ads: 120000

     Persisting STRATEGY.md is a write — confirm before saving (Write / Edit on Code, mureo_strategy_set on Desktop / Cowork).
4. Fetch month-to-date spend per platform — use the true month-to-date presets the tools actually support (no approximation needed on the built-ins):
   • Google Ads: google_ads_performance_report with period="THIS_MONTH" — a real calendar-month-to-date window. If mureo's Google Ads tools are unavailable (MUREO_DISABLE_GOOGLE_ADS=1 after mureo providers add google-ads-official), fall back to the official google-ads-official MCP's performance report over its equivalent month-to-date range.
   • Meta Ads: meta_ads_insights_report with period="this_month" — the equivalent MTD window. If mureo's Meta Ads tools are unavailable, fall back to the official meta-ads-official hosted MCP over the same window.
   • Hosted connector / plugin: use the connector's own reporting tools. If it has no true month-to-date preset, use the closest supported window and be explicit about the approximation (e.g. "TikTok: last_30d used as an MTD proxy — overstates MTD early in the month"). Never silently mislabel a wider window as MTD.
   • mureo BYOD data is centralized in the workspace byod/ directory (or ~/.mureo/byod/ for legacy CLI users) and is only reachable through mureo MCP tools — do not look for raw CSVs in the project directory.
5. Compute pacing per platform and in total:
   • MTD spend — from step 4.
   • Elapsed days — completed days this month, derived from server_now: server_now's day-of-month minus 1. Exclude today: today's numbers are a partial, still-accumulating day and would bias the run-rate downward. Daily run-rate = MTD spend ÷ elapsed (completed) days.
   • Projected month-end landing = MTD spend + run-rate × (days remaining, counting today forward) — days remaining = days in server_now's month − elapsed days.
   • % vs target = projected landing ÷ monthly target.
6. Seasonality / confidence caution: early-month run-rates are noisy — a single big-spend or zero-spend day swings the projection hard. When fewer than 5 days have elapsed, label the projection low confidence and lead with that caveat; prefer watch over act. Also note known intra-month seasonality from STRATEGY.md (e.g. a ## Custom seasonal ramp, weekend dips) that makes a flat run-rate misleading.
7. Pacing table — per platform and a total row:

   Platform

   Monthly Target

   MTD Spend

   Run-rate/day

   Projected Landing

   % vs Target

   Status

   • Status: on-pace (projected within ±10 % of target), overpacing (> +10 %, will overshoot), underpacing (< −10 %, will underspend). Carry the low-confidence flag from step 6 into the status when it applies.
8. Recommendations to land on target (do not execute yet):
   • Compute the daily-budget change that brings the projected landing back onto target: required daily spend for the rest of the month = (monthly target − MTD spend) ÷ days remaining, then translate to the per-campaign / per-platform daily-budget adjustment.
   • Respect ## Guardrails: never propose a per-campaign daily budget above max_daily_budget_per_campaign, a raise beyond max_daily_budget_increase_pct, or a total above max_total_daily_budget. If landing on target would require breaching a guardrail, say so and stop at the guardrail — surface the conflict to the operator instead of proposing an illegal change.
   • Smart-bidding learning warning: flag any single budget change > 20 % — on Google Ads Smart Bidding / Meta CBO a large step can reset the learning phase. Prefer staged changes (e.g. two ≤ 20 % steps) when the required move is large.
   • Hand off to /budget-rebalance when the right move is shifting spend between campaigns/platforms (one overpacing + one underpacing) rather than changing the total — pacing sets the envelope; /budget-rebalance allocates within it.
   • Mode guard: if Operation Mode is ONBOARDING_LEARNING or CREATIVE_TESTING, warn that budget changes are discouraged in this mode and ask whether to proceed.
9. Ask for approval before any budget change. Before each budget mutation, retrieve and display the current value (google_ads_budget_get, or the campaign/ad-set record) alongside the proposed value and the % change (per the Budget Changes Require Current Value Display rule in ../_mureo-shared/SKILL.md).
10. Execute approved changes with each platform's budget tools:
    • Google Ads: google_ads_budget_update.
    • Meta Ads: meta_ads_campaigns_update (CBO / campaign-level budget) or meta_ads_ad_sets_update (ad-set-level budget).
    • Hosted / official writes: self-apply the ## Guardrails rules yourself first (mureo's PolicyGate does not see off-path calls) and confirm — see ../_mureo-shared/SKILL.md → Hosted-connector platforms. Plugin / bridged writes (including Amazon Ads) do go through mureo's dispatcher, so the gate applies — exactly on the money tools mureo declares paths for (the 13 money-carrying Amazon tools, which is where campaign / ad-group / portfolio budgets live), with the pattern scan still applied underneath as a floor, and best-effort on argument-key patterns alone for anything else. State the cap either way, and verify it after the change on an undeclared tool.
11. Record outcome context: for each campaign modified, log to action_log (via mureo_state_action_log_append) with metrics_at_action (MTD spend, run-rate, daily budget, projected landing, with period and days) and observation_due 7 days from today, so daily-check's evidence step verifies the change actually bent the trajectory toward target. Give every entry a display line: display_title (at most 40 characters) and display_summary (at most 120) — what this action WAS, in the operator's words, as plain text with no markdown (**bold** reaches a person as asterisks). The dashboard row shows those two and stops there; the full summary is drill-down only, so keep writing it as fully as the next agent needs and let the display line be the short one. Over either bound the append is refused, never truncated.

12. Persist the report summary (best-effort): Call mureo_state_report_set with report="pacing" and a concise summary object so the read-only dashboard can render pacing without re-running you. Follow this convention:

    • generated_at: ISO 8601 timestamp of this run — use server_now
    • period: the pacing month from server_now (e.g. "2026-07") and elapsed/total days
    • totals: the account's headline figures, using the canonical metric vocabulary — spend, conversions, cpa, ctr, clicks, impressions. This is the block the dashboard renders as figures. Raw numbers only: 773957, not "¥773,957"; 0.0466, not "4.66%" — one of those keys carrying a string is refused, because it sits where the view reads a figure and renders as nothing. A key outside the vocabulary may ride along: it is stored, just not shown as a headline number. Omit totals entirely if this run gathered no account-level figures.
    • kpis: per-platform + total {monthly_target, mtd_spend, run_rate, projected_landing, pct_vs_target} — the breakdown, not the headline row
    • flags: notable items (e.g. ["google_ads_overpacing_18pct", "low_confidence_early_month"])
    • narrative: the pacing verdict (on-pace / overpacing / underpacing, with confidence) and what you propose next, at most 400 characters — the tool refuses a longer one rather than truncating it (a sentence cut in half is worse than a long one). Do not restate the figures and do not list the findings here: numbers belong in totals, findings in flags.

    Reflect the FINAL state, and persist this LAST — after every action_log entry and any budget change you applied this run. This is best-effort: if mureo_state_report_set is unavailable (e.g. a pure file-mode host without the context MCP), skip it silently — the rest of this skill still works.

13. Persist the display contract (best-effort): Call mureo_state_display_set with what the DASHBOARD shows. This is a different audience from the summary above — STATE.json is written for the next agent, and this small bounded section is the only thing the operator's screen reads. Write it in the SAME pass as the report, from the SAME figures, and reach no new verdict here: every value below is one you already decided, and this step only renders it.

    • source: your own skill name — REQUIRED whenever you write any section, at most 24 characters. The contract is replaced wholesale by whoever writes it last, so this is what lets the card say whose answer it is showing. generated_at is stamped by the server — do not compute it.
    • nav_message: the ONE line the operator should act on today — the landing and what to do about it, e.g. "On pace to underspend ¥180k — raise the two capped campaigns". One line, not a summary of the report.
    • highlights: at most 3 chips, and the tone must match the verdict you already gave — good for a target met or a clear win, watch for something to keep an eye on, bad for something deteriorating. Choose the three that matter; a fourth is refused and nothing is dropped for you. Map a finding's severity to a chip tone: action → bad / watch → watch / positive → good. info does NOT become a highlight — a neutral note would spend one of the 3 chips an action or a win needed, and it is still in the report for whoever wants it.
    • breakdown.campaigns / .adgroups: one row per entity you judged, carrying figures you ALREADY hold — spend, mcpa (the measured CPA) and target_cpa — plus state from the closed set (target_met / improving / watch / worsening / no_data) and a note of at most 40 characters. Use campaigns for the campaigns you paced; where you priced pacing at ad-set / ad-group level, use adgroups too. Omit a figure you do not have: 0 states a perfect CPA rather than the absence of one, and no_data is the state for an entity with too little delivery to judge.
    • proposals: the recommendations you did NOT carry out, one entry each — title (what to do) plus body (why, in one line) plus date = server_now's date as YYYY-MM-DD. Something you DID apply this run is the same entry with status: "done".
    • stated_values: label + figure chips ONLY ({"label": "…", "value": …}) — the pacing figures: {"label": "MTD spend", "value": 742000}, {"label": "projected landing", "value": 1180000}, {"label": "days left", "value": 9}. No prose notes here. A sentence lands in a numeric column and the tool refuses it; anything that needs a sentence stays in the report's narrative above, exactly where it goes today.

    The bounds, verbatim from the tool: The dashboard reads THIS section and nothing else — keep your reasoning where it already goes. Every bound below refuses the write rather than truncating it, because a sentence cut in half is worse than a long one. nav_message: one line, at most 80 characters. highlights: at most 3 items of {tone, text}, tone one of good/watch/bad, text at most 60 characters. proposals: {title, body, status, date}, title at most 30 and body at most 80 characters, status one of proposed/done. breakdown.campaigns / breakdown.adgroups: rows of {name, spend, mcpa, target_cpa, state, note} — the three figures are raw numbers, state is one of target_met/improving/watch/worsening/no_data, note at most 40 characters. stated_values: {label, value}, label at most 24 characters and value a raw number or a string of at most 12 characters — a sentence there is refused, because it lands in a numeric column. Do NOT write the KPI funnel or the daily chart: mureo computes both from the stored totals.

    Over a bound the write is REFUSED — shorten and rewrite, do not re-send the same sentence trimmed. Lead with the point and drop the connectives; a noun phrase is fine (CPA 12% over target, not The CPA is currently running about 12% above the target we agreed). Trimming one character at a time and calling again spends the run's context on a bound one rewrite would have met.

    You may not be the first writer today. display is REPLACED WHOLE and the last writer wins — there is no merge. Before you write it, read the current one (mureo_state_get). Of what another skill wrote TODAY, carry exactly one thing into your own write: its proposals that are still live — not yet done, and not contradicted by what you just found. Everything else you write from your own run alone, because a screen assembled from two runs shows a moment that never happened. And carry over NOTHING ELSE: never copy another skill's nav_message, highlights, breakdown or stated_values, which would put its judgement under your name when you cannot vouch for it. Name yourself in source so the screen says whose answer it is.

    This is best-effort: if mureo_state_display_set is unavailable (e.g. a pure file-mode host without the context MCP), skip it silently — the rest of this skill still works.