You Need A Budget (ynab) Mcp

YNAB MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for seamless integration with You Need A Budget (YNAB). This server enables AI assistants to interact with your YNAB budgets, providing powerful automation and analysis capabilities.

Quick Installation (Claude Desktop)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ynab-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["ynab-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "YNAB_PAT": "your_token_here",
      }
    }
  }
}

Optional environment variables:

"env": {
  "YNAB_DEFAULT_BUDGET_ID": "your_budget_id",
  "YNAB_READ_ONLY": "true"
}

Features

• Complete Budget Management

  • View and manage multiple budgets
  • Track account balances and transactions
  • Monitor category spending and goals

• Transaction Control

  • List and search transactions
  • Update transaction details
  • Manage payees and categories

• Financial Analysis

  • Get comprehensive financial overviews
  • Track spending patterns
  • Monitor budget progress

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Platform-Specific Setup
• Configuration
• Available Tools
• Usage Examples
• Development
• Contributing
• License

Installation & Usage

No installation needed when using uvx:

# Run directly (recommended)
uvx ynab-mcp-server

# Or with specific version
uvx [email protected]

For development:

# Clone and run from source
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/ynab-mcp-server.git
cd ynab-mcp-server
uv run ynab-mcp-server

Platform-Specific Setup

Claude Desktop

1. Locate your configuration file:

   • MacOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
   • Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
   • Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add the YNAB MCP server configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ynab-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["ynab-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "YNAB_PAT": "your_token_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Optional environment variables:

env: {
  "YNAB_DEFAULT_BUDGET_ID": "your_budget_id",
  "YNAB_READ_ONLY": "true"
}

Goose

1. Open Goose settings
2. Navigate to the MCP Servers section
3. Add a new server with:
   • Name: ynab-mcp
   • Command: uvx ynab-mcp-server
   • Environment Variables:
     • YNAB_PAT: your_token_here

Other Platforms

For other MCP-compatible platforms, configure using these parameters:

• Server Name: ynab-mcp
• Command: uvx
• Arguments: ynab-mcp-server
• Required Environment Variable: YNAB_PAT

Configuration

Your server can be configured using environment variables. You can place these in a .env file in the project root or set them in your shell.

Variable	Required	Description
YNAB_PAT	Yes	Your YNAB Personal Access Token.
YNAB_DEFAULT_BUDGET_ID	No	If set, the server operates in single-budget mode, always using this budget ID. The list-budgets tool will be hidden.
YNAB_READ_ONLY	No	Set to true to disable all tools that make changes to your YNAB data.

Getting Your YNAB Token

1. Get Your YNAB Token

   • Go to YNAB Developer Settings
   • Create a new Personal Access Token
   • Copy the token value

2. Set Up Environment

   Create a .env file in your working directory:

   YNAB_PAT="your_token_here"
   YNAB_DEFAULT_BUDGET_ID="your_budget_id"
   YNAB_READ_ONLY="true"
   

   Or set the environment variable directly:

   export YNAB_PAT="your_token_here"
   

Available Tools

The server provides a suite of tools for interacting with your YNAB data. The descriptions explain the purpose and recommended usage for each tool.

Tool	Description
manage-financial-overview	Get, update, or refresh a high-level financial overview. This is the best starting point for any analysis, providing account balances, goals, and important context notes.
list-accounts	List all accounts for a given budget. Useful for getting account IDs for other tools.
get-month-info	Get detailed budget information for a single month, including age of money and total amounts budgeted, spent, and available. Call this to check the monthly budget's status before making changes.
list-categories	List all categories, groups, and their budgeting details. Call this before managing budgeted amounts to see what's available and what's already been allocated.
list-transactions	List transactions for a specific account or an entire month. Use this to investigate spending patterns identified in the financial overview.
list-scheduled-transactions	List all upcoming scheduled transactions. Useful for forecasting upcoming bills.
manage-budgeted-amount	Assign a budgeted amount to a category or move money between categories. This is the primary tool for allocating funds. (Write operations disabled in read-only mode)
bulk-manage-transactions	Create, update, or delete multiple transactions at once. More efficient than making single changes. (Write operations disabled in read-only mode)
manage-scheduled-transaction	Create, update, or delete a single scheduled (recurring) transaction. Use this to manage recurring bills or savings transfers. (Write operations disabled in read-only mode)
list-payees	List all payees for a given budget. Good for finding payee IDs or identifying messy payee data that needs to be merged.
manage-payees	Merge multiple payee names into a single name. Use this to clean up payee data. (Write operations disabled in read-only mode)
lookup-entity-by-id	Look up the name and details of a specific account, category, or payee by its ID. A utility for when you have an ID but need the full context.
lookup-payee-locations	Look up geographic locations associated with a payee.
list-budgets	List all available YNAB budgets (Not available in single-budget mode).

Development

Local Setup

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/ynab-mcp-server.git
   cd ynab-mcp-server
   

2. Install dependencies:

   uv sync
   

3. Run the server:

   uv run ynab-mcp-server
   

Debugging

Use the MCP Inspector for debugging:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uvx ynab-mcp-server

For local development debugging:

cd path/to/ynab-mcp-server
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv run ynab-mcp-server

You can also view logs with:

tail -n 20 -f ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp*.log

Building and Publishing

# Build package
uv build

# Publish to PyPI
uv publish

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how you can help:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Please ensure your PR:

• Follows the existing code style
• Includes appropriate tests
• Updates documentation as needed

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• YNAB API for providing the core functionality
• Model Context Protocol for enabling AI assistant integration