YNAB MCP Server

Name: YNAB MCP Server
Author: jeangnc

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