Check the plan and the credit balance before a big import or a competitor research run, and tell the user if the work can start now.

This page is an agent-readable workflow for Deck. Humans can follow along. Coding agents should treat the steps as the source of truth.

Credits readiness check — agent workflow

Use it when: the user asks "do we have enough credits to import 2,000 tickets?", "can I start competitor research now?" or "why do my uploads wait for credits?"
Outcome: the user gets one verdict (go, wait or ask an admin) with Deck's balance, the warning level and the items that wait for credits, and one next step.
Needs: Deck MCP. Any role with MCP access can read credits. Only organization admins add credits or turn on overage, in Settings → Billing.

1. Probe Deck MCP

Call get_user_context. This must be a real tool call.

401 Unauthorized: tell the user to connect Deck MCP in this client (Settings → Connections). Stop.
No Deck tools: fetch and follow https://docs.getdeck.io/docs/agents/getting-started/prompts/ai-pm.md. Stop this workflow until the tools work.
More than one Deck organization: call select_organization, ask which one to check, and pass its org_id on every later call.

2. Ask what the work is

Ask the user what they plan to run: a CSV upload, interviews, a support ticket backfill, or competitor research. Ask for the size, for example the number of rows, files or competitors.

3. Read the balance

Make these calls in parallel:

explore_workspace with view: "credits". Read:
- plan.billing_tier.
- credits.credits_remaining, credits.total_credits and credits.period_end.
- credits.core_credits_remaining: what imports and other background work can still use when overage is off. Deck keeps the rest for activation work.
- credits.overage_enabled, credits.is_blocked and credits.is_core_processing_blocked.
- warning_level: ok, low, critical, items_waiting or exhausted.
- blocked_items.total and blocked_items.by_type.
- billing_url, which only admins get.
list_sources with statuses: ["CREDIT_BLOCKED"]: the sources that already wait for credits.
list_sources with import_source set to CSV: uploads with the status CREDIT_BLOCKED.

When credits is null, Deck found no active credit allocation. Tell the user and stop.

4. Get Deck's cost figure

Use only a figure that Deck gives:

Competitor research: call explore_competitors with view: "settings". Read credit_ceiling.credits (the most credits one run can use), free_window, plan.free_report_used, research_running and max_competitors.
Survey CSV upload: the upload wizard shows a credit counter before the user submits. Structured answers use 0 credits. Ask the user to read the counter.
Other CSV types, interviews and tickets: Deck gives no estimate before processing, because the cost depends on the amount of text. Suggest a test batch of 20-50 items. Then call explore_workspace with view: "credits" again and give the user both balances.

5. Decide

Deck says	Verdict	Next step
`warning_level` is `ok` or `low`, and Deck's cost figure is lower than `core_credits_remaining`	Go	Start the work
`overage_enabled` is true	Go	The work can use overage credits. Overage costs money. Tell the user before they start.
Deck's cost figure for an upload is higher than `core_credits_remaining`, and overage is off	Partly	Deck processes the rows it can now and keeps the rest as waiting for credits
Deck's cost figure for research is higher than `core_credits_remaining`, and overage is off	Wait	Research can return `CREDIT_LIMIT_EXCEEDED`. An admin adds credits first.
`is_blocked` or `is_core_processing_blocked` is true, or `warning_level` is `exhausted` or `items_waiting`	Wait	An admin adds credits or turns on overage. Or wait until `period_end`.
`research_running` is true	Wait	`start_competitor_research` and `add_competitor` return `CONFLICT` until the run ends
`plan.free_report_used` is true	Upgrade	The Free plan report is used. An admin upgrades the plan.
`free_window` says research is free	Go	Research is free until that date. Check-ins still use credits.

When there is no Deck cost figure, give the balance and the test batch advice. Do not give a verdict for the full batch.

6. Report

Give the verdict first. Then give Deck's numbers from steps 3 and 4 and the next step.

The user is an admin: add billing_url. You can also call get_platform_links with resources: [{ resource_type: "settings", page: "billing" }]. That link is marked admin_only.
The user is a member: write one short request that the user can send to an organization admin.

See Billing & Credits and Competitors settings.

Rules

This workflow only reads. Do not start research, uploads or imports here. After a go, the user picks the next workflow.
Quote Deck's numbers. Do not compute your own. Do not estimate the cost of a full batch from a test batch.
Never ask for card details, invoices or payment data. No MCP tool returns them.
Never ask for a dk_ API key.
Only organization admins change Billing settings.

Done when

The user has one verdict, Deck's balance and warning level, and one next step.
Each number in the report comes from a tool result in this session, or from the upload wizard as the user read it.

Credits readiness check

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