sync_plans

sync_plans pushes campaign plans with budget limits, channels, flight dates, and compliance policies to an AdCP governance agent.

sync_plans

Experimental. Campaign governance (sync_plans, check_governance, report_plan_outcome, get_plan_audit_logs) is part of AdCP 3.0 as an experimental surface — it may change between 3.x releases with at least 6 weeks’ notice. Sellers implementing it MUST declare governance.campaign in experimental_features. See experimental status for the full contract.

Push campaign plans to the governance agent. A plan defines the authorized parameters for a campaign — budget limits, channels, flight dates, authorized markets, and compliance policies — and serves as the source of truth for all validation.

Request

{
  "tool": "sync_plans",
  "arguments": {
    "plans": [
      {
        "plan_id": "plan_q1_2026_launch",
        "brand": {
          "domain": "acmecorp.com"
        },
        "objectives": "Drive awareness for spring product launch among 25-54 adults in the US, focusing on premium video and high-impact display.",
        "budget": {
          "total": 500000,
          "currency": "USD",
          "reallocation_threshold": 25000,
          "per_seller_max_pct": 40,
          "allocations": {
            "media_buy": { "amount": 400000 },
            "rights_license": { "amount": 75000 },
            "signal_activation": { "amount": 25000 }
          }
        },
        "channels": {
          "required": ["olv"],
          "allowed": ["olv", "display", "ctv", "audio"],
          "mix_targets": {
            "olv": { "min_pct": 40, "max_pct": 70 },
            "display": { "min_pct": 10, "max_pct": 30 },
            "ctv": { "min_pct": 0, "max_pct": 20 },
            "audio": { "min_pct": 0, "max_pct": 10 }
          }
        },
        "flight": {
          "start": "2026-03-15T00:00:00Z",
          "end": "2026-06-15T00:00:00Z"
        },
        "countries": ["US"],
        "policy_categories": ["age_restricted"],
        "audience": {
          "include": [
            { "type": "description", "description": "Adults 25-54 interested in home improvement" }
          ],
          "exclude": [
            { "type": "description", "description": "Children under 13" }
          ]
        },
        "restricted_attributes": ["health_data"],
        "min_audience_size": 1000,
        "policy_ids": ["us_coppa", "alcohol_advertising"],
        "custom_policies": [
          {
            "policy_id": "no_competitor_adjacency",
            "enforcement": "must",
            "policy": "No advertising adjacent to competitor content."
          }
        ],
        "approved_sellers": null,
        "ext": {}
      }
    ]
  }
}

Response

{
  "plans": [
    {
      "plan_id": "plan_q1_2026_launch",
      "status": "active",
      "version": 1,
      "categories": [
        { "category_id": "budget_authority", "status": "active" },
        { "category_id": "strategic_alignment", "status": "active" },
        { "category_id": "bias_fairness", "status": "active" },
        { "category_id": "regulatory_compliance", "status": "active" },
        { "category_id": "seller_verification", "status": "active" },
        { "category_id": "brand_policy", "status": "active" }
      ],
      "resolved_policies": [
        { "policy_id": "us_coppa", "source": "explicit", "enforcement": "must", "reason": "Referenced in plan policy_ids" },
        { "policy_id": "alcohol_advertising", "source": "explicit", "enforcement": "should", "reason": "Referenced in plan policy_ids" }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

How it works

Plans originate in external systems — an agency’s planning tool, a brand’s budget system, an insertion order. sync_plans pushes them to the governance agent so it knows what to validate against.

Syncing a plan that already exists (same plan_id) updates it. The governance agent increments the version and re-evaluates any active campaigns against the updated rules. This handles mid-flight amendments like budget increases or channel additions. Content-standards versions follow a separate pinned-at-buy rule — see content standards versioning.

Multiple campaigns (identified by governance_context in check_governance and report_plan_outcome) can reference the same plan. The governance agent tracks budget across all campaigns tied to a plan.

The plan specifies campaign context — budget, channels, flight dates, and authorized markets. The governance agent resolves applicable policies from the brand’s compliance configuration, but plans can also reference registry policies directly via policy_ids and include campaign-specific rules via custom_policies. This supports both centralized policy management (brand-level) and campaign-specific overrides when the buying team needs additional requirements for a particular campaign.

countries and regions serve two purposes:

1. Geo enforcement — The governance agent rejects governed actions targeting outside the plan’s markets. A plan with regions: ["US-MA"] blocks actions that don’t explicitly target Massachusetts.
2. Policy resolution — The agent finds all policies whose jurisdictions overlap with the plan’s markets. A plan with countries: ["US"] is subject to all US federal and state-level policies. A plan with only regions: ["US-MA"] is subject to Massachusetts-specific and federal policies.

These fields use the same ISO codes and semantics as product-filters, offerings, and create_media_buy — ensuring consistent geo vocabulary across the protocol. A pharma campaign running nationally uses countries: ["US"]; a cannabis campaign limited to legal states uses regions: ["US-CO", "US-CA", "US-MA"].

Plan-hash preimage

Each plan item a buyer supplies here is the preimage the governance agent hashes to produce the plan_hash audit-layer claim carried in every signed governance_context. Canonicalization rules, the closed bookkeeping exclusion list, retention obligations, and the full set of reference test vectors are specified in Plan binding and audit. Governance-agent implementers SHOULD run their hashing code against the eleven vectors under static/compliance/source/test-vectors/plan-hash/ before shipping.

Fields

Request

Field	Type	Required	Description
plans	array	Yes	One or more campaign plans to sync.
plans[].plan_id	string	Yes	Unique identifier for this plan.
plans[].brand	BrandRef	Yes	Brand being governed. The governance agent resolves the brand’s compliance configuration to determine applicable policies.
plans[].objectives	string	Yes	Natural language campaign objectives. Used for strategic alignment validation.
plans[].budget	object	Yes	Budget parameters.
plans[].budget.total	number	Yes	Total authorized budget.
plans[].budget.currency	string	Yes	ISO 4217 currency code.
plans[].budget.reallocation_threshold	number	Yes	Amount the agent may reallocate without escalation. 0 requires human approval for every reallocation; a value at or above budget.total is effectively unlimited. See specification.
plans[].budget.per_seller_max_pct	number	No	Maximum percentage of budget that can go to a single seller.
plans[].budget.allocations	object	No	Optional per-purchase-type budget partitions. Keys are purchase types (media_buy, rights_license, signal_activation, creative_services), values are objects with amount. When present, the governance agent validates spend against both the per-type allocation and the overall total. When absent, all spend counts against the single total regardless of purchase type. Allocations are guardrails, not hard partitions — the sum of allocations MAY differ from the total.
plans[].channels	object	No	Channel constraints. If omitted, all channels are allowed.
plans[].flight	object	Yes	Authorized flight dates. Governed actions with dates outside this window are rejected.
plans[].countries	array	No	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes for authorized markets. The governance agent rejects governed actions targeting outside these countries and resolves applicable policies by matching against policy jurisdictions.
plans[].regions	array	No	ISO 3166-2 subdivision codes for authorized sub-national markets (e.g., US-MA). When present, restricts buys to these regions rather than the full country.
plans[].policy_categories	array	No	Regulatory categories that apply to this campaign (e.g., children_directed, fair_housing). Determines which policy regimes the governance agent enforces. When omitted, governance agents MAY infer from the brand’s industries and campaign objectives.
plans[].audience	object	No	Audience targeting constraints. Defines who the campaign should reach (include) and must not reach (exclude). See audience constraints.
plans[].restricted_attributes	array	No	Personal data categories that must not be used for targeting (e.g., health_data, racial_ethnic_origin). GDPR Article 9 special categories. The governance agent flags any audience targeting referencing these attributes.
plans[].restricted_attributes_custom	array	No	Additional restricted attributes not covered by the enum. Freeform strings for jurisdiction-specific restrictions (e.g., financial_status).
plans[].min_audience_size	integer	No	Minimum audience segment size for k-anonymity. Applies to the estimated intersection audience when multiple criteria are used.
plans[].policy_ids	array	No	Registry policy IDs to enforce for this plan. Intersected with the plan’s countries/regions to activate only geographically relevant policies.
plans[].custom_policies	array	No	Campaign-specific policies using the PolicyEntry shape (policy_id, enforcement, policy text required). Additive only — cannot relax or override registry-sourced policies. See policy resolution.
plans[].approved_sellers	array/null	No	List of approved seller agent URLs. null means any seller.
plans[].delegations	array	No	Agents authorized to execute against this plan. See specification.
plans[].delegations[].agent_url	string	Yes	URL of the delegated agent.
plans[].delegations[].authority	enum	Yes	full, execute_only, or propose_only.
plans[].delegations[].budget_limit	object	No	Maximum budget this agent can commit.
plans[].delegations[].markets	array	No	ISO country/region codes this agent is authorized for.
plans[].delegations[].expires_at	string	No	ISO 8601 delegation expiration.
plans[].portfolio	object	No	Portfolio-level governance constraints. See specification.
plans[].portfolio.member_plan_ids	array	Yes	Plan IDs governed by this portfolio plan.
plans[].portfolio.total_budget_cap	object	No	Maximum aggregate budget across member plans.
plans[].portfolio.shared_policy_ids	array	No	Registry policy IDs enforced across all member plans.
plans[].portfolio.shared_exclusions	array	No	Bespoke exclusion policies applied to all member plans, using the PolicyEntry shape (policy_id, enforcement, policy text required).
plans[].ext	object	No	Extension data.

Response

Field	Type	Description
plans	array	Status for each synced plan.
plans[].plan_id	string	Plan identifier.
plans[].status	enum	active (sync succeeded) or error (sync failed). This is the sync result status, not the plan lifecycle status.
plans[].version	number	Plan version (increments on each sync).
plans[].categories	array	Validation categories active for this plan. Depends on the governance agent’s declared capabilities.
plans[].categories[].category_id	string	Validation category identifier.
plans[].categories[].status	enum	active or inactive.
plans[].resolved_policies	array	Policies the governance agent will enforce for this plan. Includes explicitly referenced and auto-applied policies.
plans[].resolved_policies[].policy_id	string	Registry policy ID.
plans[].resolved_policies[].source	enum	explicit (referenced in config or plan) or auto_applied (matched by jurisdiction/policy category).
plans[].resolved_policies[].enforcement	enum	must, should, or may.
plans[].resolved_policies[].reason	string	Why this policy was included.

Audience constraints

Plans can declare audience targeting constraints using the audience field. Each constraint is an audience selector — either a reference to a specific signal or a natural language description.

Signal reference — points to a specific signal in a data provider’s catalog:

{
  "type": "signal",
  "catalog_url": "https://signals.dataprovider.com/catalog.json",
  "signal_id": "likely_ev_buyers",
  "value": true
}

Description — natural language for constraints that don’t map to a specific signal:

{
  "type": "description",
  "description": "Adults aged 25-54 in urban areas",
  "category": "demographic"
}

The governance agent evaluates seller targeting against these constraints during check_governance. Signal references enable structural matching; descriptions require semantic comparison.

Restricted attributes

The restricted_attributes field declares personal data categories that must not be used for targeting. Values are GDPR Article 9 special categories: racial_ethnic_origin, political_opinions, religious_beliefs, trade_union_membership, health_data, sex_life_sexual_orientation, genetic_data, biometric_data.

The governance agent matches these against signal definitions that declare their own restricted_attributes. Signals with matching attributes are blocked from targeting. For signals without declared attributes, the governance agent falls back to semantic inference from the signal name and description.

Policy categories

The policy_categories field declares which regulatory regimes apply. Categories are defined in the policy registry and group related regulations — for example, children_directed covers COPPA, UK AADC, and GDPR Article 8.

Policy categories are distinct from brand.industries. Industries describe what a company does; policy categories describe what regulatory regimes apply to a specific campaign. A pharmaceutical company (industries: ["pharmaceuticals"]) running a general awareness campaign might not need pharmaceutical_advertising as a policy category if the campaign doesn’t promote specific drugs.

Error codes

Code	Recovery	Description
INVALID_PLAN	correctable	Plan is missing required fields or has invalid values.
REFERENCE_NOT_FOUND	correctable	Brand domain could not be resolved via the Brand Protocol. The governance agent cannot determine applicable compliance policies without a valid brand reference. error.field MUST identify the brand field that failed to resolve.
BUDGET_BELOW_COMMITTED	correctable	Cannot reduce budget below the amount already committed (on plan update).

Related tasks

• check_governance — Validate actions against this plan
• report_plan_outcome — Report outcomes back to update plan state
• get_plan_audit_logs — View plan state and audit trail