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Quickstart

Once you have a YNAB Personal Access Token, configure your MCP client to run the server.

Configure your client

Add the following to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ynab": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "you-need-an-advisor-mcp", "ynaa-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "YNAB_PAT": "your-personal-access-token"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace your-personal-access-token with the token from the installation step.

See the Configuration page for file location details and additional options.

Run the server with your token as an environment variable:

YNAB_PAT=your-personal-access-token uvx --from you-need-an-advisor-mcp ynaa-mcp

Point your MCP client at the running server using its stdio transport.

New to MCP?

MCP clients connect to MCP servers over a standard protocol. Claude Desktop has built-in MCP support -- you just add the server configuration and it handles the rest. Other clients may require pointing at a running server process.

Learn more about MCP | What is MCP?

Try it out

Once connected, try asking your AI assistant:

You: Show me my budget summary.

Claude: Your budget "My Budget" has 15 accounts with a total balance of $12,340.50. This month you've budgeted $4,200 across 28 categories, with $3,150 spent so far. Your Age of Money is 45 days.

Here are some other things to try:

  • "How much did I spend on dining out last month?"
  • "What categories are overspent?"
  • "List my accounts and their balances"
  • "Show me my scheduled transactions for this month"

The server handles authentication, rate limiting, and data formatting automatically. You just ask questions in natural language.

What's available

YNAB MCP exposes three types of capabilities:

  • Tools -- Read and write your YNAB data (budgets, accounts, categories, transactions, payees, months, scheduled transactions, cache management)
  • Prompts -- Pre-built analysis and workflow templates (spending trends, budget health, debt payoff planning)
  • Resources -- YNAB methodology knowledge that informs the assistant's advice (Four Rules, overspending, credit cards)

See the User Guide for the full list of tools, prompts, and resources.

Next steps