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Core Prompts

Essential everyday prompts for common YNAB tasks. These are the foundational prompts that ship with YNAB MCP -- the operations you'll use most frequently when interacting with your budget through an AI assistant.

Core prompts focus on the day-to-day: reviewing what you spent, entering new transactions, and checking your budget's pulse.

Budget ID is optional

All core prompts accept an optional budget_id parameter. If you don't provide one, the AI will look up your budgets first and ask which one to use.

Review Monthly Spending

What it does: Guides the AI through a complete review of a specific month's spending, reading budget context via MCP resources and then analyzing transactions and category activity.

When to use:

  • End-of-month spending review
  • Comparing spending to what you budgeted
  • Looking for categories that went over or under
  • Preparing for next month's budget adjustments

Parameters:

Parameter Required Description
month Yes The month to review in YYYY-MM format (e.g., 2025-01).
budget_id No The budget to analyze. Resolved automatically if omitted.

What you'll get: A month-in-review report with spending by category, comparison to budgeted amounts, notable transactions, and observations about your spending patterns.

Enter Transactions

What it does: Guides the AI through entering one or more transactions, reading account and category context first so it can suggest the right account and category for each transaction.

When to use:

  • Recording purchases from the day
  • Entering a batch of receipts
  • Logging a payment or transfer
  • Any time you need to add transactions to your budget

Parameters:

Parameter Required Description
budget_id No The budget to add transactions to. Resolved automatically if omitted.

What you'll get: A guided transaction entry workflow where the AI reads your accounts and categories first, then helps you enter each transaction with the correct account, payee, category, and amount.

Budget Health Check

What it does: Guides the AI through a quick budget health review, reading account and category data to assess overall budget health.

When to use:

  • Quick daily or weekly check-in
  • Want a snapshot of budget status without deep analysis
  • Checking if anything needs immediate attention
  • Verifying the budget looks right after changes

Parameters:

Parameter Required Description
budget_id No The budget to check. Resolved automatically if omitted.

What you'll get: A quick-look health summary covering your TBB balance, any overspent categories, and whether your budget needs attention.

Health Check vs Health Analysis

The core budget_health_check prompt provides a quick snapshot. For a deeper analysis with recommendations, use the Budget Health Analysis prompt from the Analysis Prompts section.

Example Conversation

Here's what using the review_monthly_spending prompt looks like:

User: Use the review_monthly_spending prompt for 2025-01

AI: Let me review your January spending. First, I'll pull up your
    budget context...

    [Reads ynab://budgets/{id}/categories for category structure]
    [Reads ynab://budgets/{id}/accounts for account context]
    [Calls manage_months to get January data]
    [Calls manage_transactions to get January transactions]

    ## January 2025 Spending Review

    **Total Spent:** $4,230
    **Total Budgeted:** $4,500
    **Under Budget By:** $270

    **Top Categories:**
    - Housing: $1,800 (on budget)
    - Groceries: $620 ($70 over budget)
    - Dining Out: $285 ($35 over budget)
    - Transportation: $340 (on budget)

    **Notable:** Groceries and Dining Out were both over budget.
    Together that's $105 of overspending. Your other categories
    came in under, which absorbed the difference. Consider
    adjusting those targets for February.