YNAB MCP

What it does

YNAB MCP bridges Claude and your You Need A Budget (YNAB) account, letting you inspect and manage your personal finances entirely through conversation. Ask Claude to show your budget balances, add transactions, review spending categories, or reallocate funds — all without opening the YNAB app.

The server handles OAuth 2.0 authentication with the YNAB API and runs inside a Docker container, keeping your credentials isolated in a mounted volume.

Tools

• list_budgets — Retrieve all budgets associated with your YNAB account
• get_accounts — List accounts and current balances for a given budget
• list_transactions — Fetch transactions with optional date filtering
• create_transaction — Record a new transaction with payee, amount, and category
• get_categories — View category groups and individual category balances
• assign_to_categories — Allocate funds from Ready to Assign to multiple categories in one call
• get_recommended_allocations — AI-assisted budget distribution suggestions based on goals and spending patterns
• list_payees — Retrieve all payees for a budget
• get_months — View monthly budget summaries
• list_scheduled_transactions — See upcoming recurring transactions

Installation

Claude Desktop (Docker)

1. Build the image: docker build -t ynab-mcp:latest .
2. Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ynab": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "--rm", "-i",
        "-v", "/path/to/data:/app/data",
        "-v", "/path/to/config:/app/config",
        "-e", "NODE_ENV=production",
        "ynab-mcp:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code CLI

claude mcp add-json ynab '{"command":"docker","args":["run","--rm","-i","-v","/path/to/data:/app/data","-v","/path/to/config:/app/config","-e","NODE_ENV=production","ynab-mcp:latest"]}'

Supported hosts

Confirmed in README: Claude Desktop, Claude Code CLI.