AdCP — Creative capabilities on sales agents

A sales agent can sell inventory, manage creatives, and optionally produce them. Those are separate capabilities.

Format deliverability is product-scoped

Every new 3.2 product declares its closed accepted set in Product.format_options[]. This is true whether or not the sales endpoint also implements Creative Protocol tasks.

{
  "product_id": "daily_pulse_homepage",
  "format_options": [
    {
      "format_option_id": "homepage_image_300x250",
      "format_kind": "image",
      "params": { "width": 300, "height": 250 }
    }
  ]
}

An agent-global format list cannot express product-, placement-, account-, or inventory-specific deliverability. For that reason, sales-agent list_creative_formats is deprecated in 3.2.

Creative operations are capability-scoped

If the same endpoint can build, validate, or preview creatives, include creative in supported_protocols and advertise the operation catalog in creative.supported_formats[]:

{
  "supported_protocols": ["media_buy", "creative"],
  "creative": {
    "supports_generation": true,
    "has_creative_library": true,
    "supported_formats": [
      {
        "capability_id": "homepage_image_builder",
        "operations": ["build", "validate", "preview"],
        "format": {
          "format_kind": "image",
          "params": { "width": 300, "height": 250 }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

The endpoint may expose both facts, but they remain independent:

Product.format_options[] says the product can deliver the format.
creative.supported_formats[] says this endpoint can perform creative operations for it.
build_creative.target_capability_id selects one operation entry.
The returned manifest carries format_kind, never capability_id.

Creative management modes

Declaration	Meaning
`media_buy.inline_creative_management: true`	Package-scoped creative bodies are accepted on create/update media-buy operations
`creative.has_creative_library: true`	The agent exposes reusable library operations such as `sync_creatives` and `list_creatives`
`creative.supported_formats[]`	The endpoint exposes canonical build, validation, or preview operations

An endpoint may support any applicable combination. Inline management does not imply a reusable library; a library does not imply generation.

Seller-side generation

For seller-produced creative, the product declaration tells the buyer what inputs the delivery contract accepts. For example, a sponsored placement might require a brief and catalog reference. The endpoint’s creative capability then advertises the matching build route.

{
  "target_capability_id": "sponsored_product_builder",
  "message": "Promote lightweight trail shoes for spring hikes",
  "brand": { "domain": "acmeoutdoor.example" }
}

If the seller renders only at impression time, buyers still submit a canonical manifest containing the required brief/catalog assets through sync_creatives. The impression-time renderer is the seller runtime, not a separately discoverable creative agent.

Compatibility

A sales agent may project canonical product declarations into deprecated format_ids[] and list_creative_formats for older 3.x peers. The projection must be derived; it must not become a second authored catalog.

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Creative Capabilities on Sales Agents

Format deliverability is product-scoped

Creative operations are capability-scoped

Creative management modes

Seller-side generation

Compatibility

​Format deliverability is product-scoped

​Creative operations are capability-scoped

​Creative management modes

​Seller-side generation

​Compatibility

​Related

Format deliverability is product-scoped

Creative operations are capability-scoped

Creative management modes

Seller-side generation

Compatibility

Related