YNAB MCP Server

MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for the YNAB (You Need A Budget) API.

Installation

Via npx (recommended)

No installation required. Configure your Claude client to use npx directly (see below).

Via npm (global)

npm install -g ynab-mcp-server

From source

git clone https://github.com/jeangnc/ynab-mcp-server.git
cd ynab-mcp-server
make install
make build

Configuration

First, set your YNAB API token in your shell profile (~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc):

export YNAB_API_TOKEN="your-token-here"

Claude Code

claude mcp add ynab --scope user --env YNAB_API_TOKEN='${YNAB_API_TOKEN}' -- npx -y ynab-mcp-server

Claude Desktop

Add to ~/.config/claude/claude_desktop_config.json (Linux) or ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ynab": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "ynab-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "YNAB_API_TOKEN": "${YNAB_API_TOKEN}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Manual usage

YNAB_API_TOKEN=$YNAB_API_TOKEN npx ynab-mcp-server

Available Tools

Tool	Description
list_budgets	Get all budgets for the authenticated user
get_budget	Get detailed budget information
list_accounts	List all accounts in a budget
get_account	Get specific account details
list_categories	Get categories grouped by category group
get_category	Get single category details
list_transactions	Get transactions with optional filters
get_transaction	Get single transaction details
list_payees	Get all payees
list_scheduled_transactions	Get recurring transactions
list_months	Get budget month summaries
get_month	Get detailed month with category balances

Makefile Commands

make install  # Install dependencies
make build    # Compile TypeScript
make run      # Run compiled server
make dev      # Run TypeScript directly
make clean    # Remove build artifacts