# Prepare accounts for a seasonal peak in one pass

> Tier: recipe. Operating recipe: real tool sequence, core rules, known traps.

The pre-season sweep: where budgets cap, what is still learning, what the feeds reject, weeks ahead.

**Intent.** Budget headroom, learning stability and feed health before the season, not during.

## When to use

- 4-6 weeks before the account's known peaks.

## When not to use

- Mid-peak: the time to change structure has passed, stability wins.

## Sources

Required: any connected source

## Preconditions

- The account is ticked in the dashboard, confirmed via list_accounts.

## Inputs

- `window`: Analysis window. Default: last 30 days.

## Procedure

1. Find budget-limited campaigns that will cap under seasonal volume. — tools: `google_ads_get_budgets`, `google_ads_get_insights`
2. Find fresh restructures still in learning that the peak would reset. — tools: `meta_get_ad_activity`, `google_ads_get_change_events`
3. Run feed health where the season is product-led. — tools: `google_ads_get_shopping_products`, `pinterest_get_catalog_diagnostics`

## Decision rules

- **When** A structural change is proposed inside the freeze window → **conclude** Default answer is after the peak: quantify the learning-reset cost in the reply.

## Evidence requirements

- Every figure carries its account, metric and window.
- Anything below a readable sample size is reported as unjudged, not as zero.

## Human approval boundary

- The readout changes nothing. Any change it motivates goes through Safe Writes: preview, human confirmation, then apply.

## Failure modes

- Last year's calendar is this year's hypothesis: dates shift, verify the peak weeks first.

## Output

- **Readout**: The figures, with windows and accounts named.
- **Flags**: What deserves a deeper skill or a human decision.

## Related

- Skill: [budget-reallocation](https://www.getmcpads.com/skills/budget-reallocation.md)
- Skill: [shopping-feed-health](https://www.getmcpads.com/skills/shopping-feed-health.md)