Last year's configuration is evidence, not approval
A seasonal site may retain a hostname while its campaign, model, provider rates, plugins, staff, and traffic shape all change. Treat the prior limit as a historical observation. Do not automatically reactivate Enforcement because it was safe twelve months ago.
At season close, record the final usage, settings, model, traffic peak, incidents, remaining queues, license state, technical owner, and data-retention actions. Disable scheduled AI jobs and callbacks that are unnecessary while dormant, then verify provider usage reaches the expected idle level.
Assign ownership before reopening
Name a business owner for acceptable interruption, a technical owner for the WordPress path, and an on-call contact for the first campaign window. Confirm dashboard access and remove departed staff. A hostname with no current decision owner is not ready for production.
Inventory changes since closure: theme and plugin versions, CDN and proxy rules, provider project and key, AI model, prompt or tool behavior, checkout integration, consent tooling, and campaign channels. Mark each as unchanged, changed and tested, or unknown.
| Lifecycle point | Required record | Acceptance |
|---|---|---|
| Season close | date, final usage, jobs disabled, owner | idle usage verified |
| Pre-open | change inventory and access review | no unknown critical owner or path |
| First 72 hours | Monitoring baseline by hour/path | expected and peak demand observed |
| Enforcement approval | limits, rollback, expiry, approvers | rehearsal passes |
| Next close | scheduled date and evidence owner | calendar and handoff confirmed |
Reopen in Monitoring for 72 hours
Observe attempts, tokens, estimated USD, errors, retries, p95 latency, customer outcomes, and Human/Bot/Unknown mix by path. Include staff testing and campaign previews in the notes so they are not mistaken for customer demand. Keep a separate hard external ceiling where the provider supports it.
Estimate the campaign peak from media plan and prior conversion, then test beyond it in a controlled rehearsal. If the live campaign starts before 72 representative hours are available, document the uncertainty and use more conservative, reversible settings rather than pretending the baseline is complete.
Approve new controls and rollback together
Derive limits from the new baseline and acceptable loss, not from a percentage copied from last season. State which routes and contexts are covered, what remains outside the WordPress path, and how customer-facing features behave when a limit activates.
Test one deliberate activation and rollback. Record who can change settings, how long restoration takes, and the public verification step. Temporary launch exceptions need their own expiry so they cannot become next year's invisible defaults.
Use one record across close and reopen
The seasonal reactivation record should remain attached to the hostname across years. It contains close date, last provider usage, current owner, change inventory, first 72-hour data, peak estimate, approved limits, rehearsal evidence, and the next closure date.
The site is ready when ownership is current, stale jobs are absent, Monitoring has produced usable evidence, rollback is tested, and Enforcement has a fresh approval. The Agency page is the relevant next step for teams maintaining this lifecycle across multiple client or campaign hostnames.
Use the seasonal reactivation record from “Reactivate a seasonal campaign site without inheriting last year's limits” on a real first installation. Download AI Cost Circuit Breaker for free, begin in Monitoring, and move to enforcement only after the expected signals and rollback are verified.