Plan creative tests on a timeline on a Claude whiteboard

Builds a test roadmap on a Claude whiteboard: the tests the person names, a board's tests to decide or the brief's notes, laid out as rows on a timeline from today with the dates that matter (a sale, Black Friday, Christmas). Each row gives its live dates, its creative-ready date when a new creative is needed, its read date (when every version passes the creative brief's thresholds, estimated from observed pace) and the daily budget per version that read requires. Dates are a draft proposed by stated rules until the person approves them; owners only when named.

Recipe

Intent Up to five tests on a timeline from today, each with when it goes live, when it can be read against the brief's thresholds and what budget that takes, as a draft until the person approves the dates.

Steps: 8
Tools: 0
Rules: 3
Failure modes: 3

skills/test-roadmap-on-a-whiteboard.md

When to use it

Use it when

Someone asks for a test plan, a roadmap, a calendar of tests or when to read them, after a creative review, a competitor board or a brief.
Before a season or a sale, to see which tests can still be read in time and what budget each needs.

Do not use it when

Launching or changing campaigns: the roadmap plans; launches go through prepare_campaign_launch or change_campaigns with their own approval.
Hosts without Claude's whiteboard artifact: give the same plan as a table in the conversation.

What it needs first

Optional Meta Ads, Google Ads, TikTok Ads

No single source is required: this one reads across whatever you have connected.

Preconditions

The account is among the chosen accounts, confirmed via list_accounts.

Evidence every conclusion must carry

Every pace figure names its ad or ad set, its days and its source.
Every row points to where its test came from.

Inputs
Input	Required	What it is
`tests`	required	The tests: named by the person, a board's tests to decide, or the brief's notes.
`dates`		Live and creative-ready dates the person approves; without them, a draft by the date rules.
`anchors`		Dates the tests serve (a sale, Black Friday, Christmas).

Procedure

In order. Every tool named is one the gateway ships, and links to its reference.

Steps

Collect the tests, at most five: those the person names, else the "tests to decide" of a board they point to, else the notes of the account's creative brief (get_creative_brief). Each row keeps where it comes from as "*From: <panel or brief>*". Read the brief's thresholds (minSpend, minResults) and KPI; without thresholds, ask for them before dating any read.
Read the pace: for an ad that ran before, its own daily spend and results (platform daily insights over the days it delivered); for the ad set, its spend over the period divided by the ads with delivery and the days.
Propose dates by rules, and write them on the board: a test that needs no new creative starts the next working day; one that needs a new creative starts the working day after a creative-ready date the person confirms, else a proposed placeholder marked "to confirm"; read when every version has passed the brief's thresholds at the observed pace, never before; a test that serves a date is read before it, at the latest the day before, and if it cannot pass the thresholds by then at a realistic budget the row says so.Cost to pass = max(spend threshold, result threshold × the ad set's cost per result). Budget a day per version = cost to pass ÷ days live before the read, rounded up. Compare it with the ad set's usual spend per ad and say how many days that pace would need. Show it under the row's bar, large, with the computation in small text; cobalt only when it is the takeaway.
Lay out: a left column 600 wide (number, title, why, **Rule.**, source); a timeline at 50 a day from today to the Monday after the last read, Monday ticks with faint gridlines, today as a solid ink line, anchors as dashed lines with their day, later anchors pointed to at the right edge; live bars solid, creative-ready dates as dashed outlines, reads as hollow diamonds, all in ONE clean SVG in currentColor behind the labels, on the board background inside a hollow rounded frame (never a filled card).Bar label above its bar; the creative-ready label ends just before the live bar; the read label left of its diamond when there is room, never crossing an anchor line.
Header: the brand line, a title ("<N> tests before <anchor>"), the takeaway (10 words at most), a hollow ink pill "**Draft to approve** · proposed by Claude · no owners" with the line "Live dates follow the rules under the plan. Creative-ready dates are placeholders to confirm.", a legend, and counters top right (tests, the takeaway figure, last reading). Footer: "How Claude proposed these dates" with the rules, then the source line (account, currency, ad set with its CPA and ROAS, where the tests came from, brief revision, pace source and period, thresholds, target status) and the brand line.
When the person approves dates, update the same elements in place: the pill becomes "**Approved** · <Mon D>", its line "Dates approved on <Mon D>.", bar labels lose "proposed", a confirmed creative-ready date becomes a solid outline, the rules heading becomes "How these dates were set". Change only what they approved.
Keep every text readable in light and dark: the board picks the ink of a text, and of an SVG's currentColor, from what lies directly under it (a filled card gives the card's ink, anything else, an SVG image included, the board's ink). So never write text over an SVG that lies on a filled card: a large labelled drawing (a timeline, a chart, ribbons with labels) sits on the board background, framed if needed by a hollow rounded shape stroked #8C8C8C, and filled cards hold only text written on them, pictures and small unlabelled marks.
Brand the board with the Get MCP Ads mark, twice and nowhere else: an image element 16 by 16 with "by": "claude" and this exact src: data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 24 24' data-look='clean'><path d='M4.5 1.5v21M19.5 1.5v21' stroke='currentColor' stroke-width='2.6' stroke-linecap='square' fill='none'/><circle cx='12' cy='12' r='4.2' fill='currentColor'/></svg>. For a small text line at (x, y), put the mark at (x − 2, y + 3) and the small ink text at (x + 20, y). Header, at y 0 above the title: "**Get MCP Ads** / <board name> / <scope>" (account or brand, platform, period, joined by " · "). Footer: 16 below the source line, "Data via [Get MCP Ads](https://getmcpads.com)".Never drop data-look='clean' (the bars turn into pen strokes), never upload the mark as a picture (pictures get a polaroid frame), never recolour it: accent colours belong to the data. No mark on cards and never larger than small text.

Decision rules

The observable condition, what it lets you conclude, and what takes the conclusion back.

When The brief has no thresholds and the person gives noneConclude Lay out the live dates but leave every read undated ("read when the thresholds are set") and ask for them; never pick thresholds.
When A test cannot pass the thresholds before the date it serves at the ad set's usual paceConclude Write the budget a day per version it needs in the row; never shorten the rule or move the read past the date it serves without saying so.
When The person names an owner for a testConclude Add "Owner: <name as given>" to that row's left column and nothing else; never assign owners or roles yourself.

Where the agent stops

The roadmap launches nothing and spends nothing; each test goes live through its own preview and confirmation.

How it goes wrong quietly

The cases where the analysis is wrong and still looks right. Read them before trusting a number.

Presenting proposed dates as decided, or adding owners, roles or a decision date the person did not give.
Dating a read before every version has passed the brief's thresholds.
Ignoring the result threshold when it costs more than the spend threshold at the ad set's cost per result.

What the answer contains

What Test roadmap on a whiteboard returns
Section	What it holds
Whiteboard	The tests on a timeline with live, creative-ready and read dates, the budget each read needs, the draft or approved status, and the brand.
Note	The rules used to propose the dates and the sources of every pace figure.