Monarch Money MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for integrating with the Monarch Money personal finance platform through Claude Desktop.

Overview

Secure by design — browser-based login, token stored in OS keychain (never in config files or env vars)
Safe by default — read-only mode prevents accidental changes; write tools require explicit opt-in
Comprehensive — 44 tools covering accounts, transactions, splits, budgets, cashflow, tags, categories, transaction rules, recurring merchants, and credit history
Easy to install — Claude Desktop extension (.mcpb), uvx, or pip

Two operating modes:

The server starts in read-only mode by default. Write tools are hidden and blocked until you explicitly opt in.

	Read-only (default)	Write mode
View accounts, transactions, budgets	Yes	Yes
Analyze cashflow, spending, net worth	Yes	Yes
Create transactions, tags, categories, rules	No	Yes
Update accounts, budgets, splits	No	Yes
Delete transactions, tags, accounts	No	Yes

Quick Start

Installation

Option 1: Claude Desktop Extension (.mcpb) — Recommended for Claude Desktop

Enables toggling write mode on/off directly from the Claude Desktop app.

Download the latest .mcpb from Releases
In Claude Desktop: Settings > Extensions > Advanced Settings > Install Extensions — select the .mcpb file
Restart Claude Desktop

To enable write tools: Settings > Extensions > Monarch Money MCP Server > Configure — toggle "Enable write tools" and click Save.

Option 2: uvx (no install required) — Recommended for agents (e.g. Claude Code or Cursor)

Also works with Claude Desktop, but write mode cannot be toggled from the app — set it in the config instead.

Add to your MCP config file:

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Monarch Money": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["monarch-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

To enable write tools:

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Monarch Money": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["monarch-mcp", "--enable-write"]
    }
  }
}

Option 3: pip install — Recommended for local installation and venv

Terminal

pip install monarch-mcp

Contributors: See docs/releasing.md for the release process, version scheme, and pre-release testing via TestPyPI.

Add to your MCP config using the full path to your Python interpreter:

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Monarch Money": {
      "command": "/path/to/bin/python3",
      "args": ["-m", "monarch_mcp"]
    }
  }
}

To enable write tools, add "--enable-write" to args.

Option 4: Clone and install — Recommended for development

bash

git clone https://github.com/vargahis/monarch-mcp.git
cd monarch-mcp
pip install -e .

Then add to your MCP config using the Python interpreter from your dev environment:

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Monarch Money": {
      "command": "/path/to/bin/python3",
      "args": ["-m", "monarch_mcp"]
    }
  }
}

To enable write tools, add "--enable-write" to args.

Authentication

Authentication happens automatically in your browser the first time the MCP server starts without a saved session.

Start (or restart) Claude Desktop
The server detects that no token exists and opens a login page in your browser
Enter your Monarch Money email and password
Provide your 2FA code if you have MFA enabled
Once authenticated, the token is saved to your system keyring — you're all set

Key details:

Credentials are entered in your browser only — never through Claude Desktop
Token stored in the OS keyring — persists across restarts, lasts weeks/months
Expired sessions re-authenticate automatically — the browser login re-triggers on the next tool call
MFA fully supported
Fallback: run python login_setup.py in a terminal for headless environments

For technical details on the auth architecture, see docs/authentication.md.

Usage Examples

Code

Show me all my financial accounts

Code

What were my last 50 transactions?

Code

How's my budget looking this month?

Code

Analyze my cashflow for the last 3 months

Code

Create a tag called "Business Expenses" in red

Available Tools

Tool	Description	Mode
Auth
`setup_authentication`	Get setup instructions	read
`check_auth_status`	Check authentication status	read
`debug_session_loading`	Debug keyring issues	read
Accounts
`get_accounts`	Get all financial accounts	read
`get_account_holdings`	Get investment holdings	read
`get_account_history`	Get historical balance data	read
`get_recent_account_balances`	Get daily balances	read
`get_account_snapshots_by_type`	Net worth by account type	read
`get_aggregate_snapshots`	Daily aggregate net value	read
`get_institutions`	Get connected institutions	read
`get_account_type_options`	Get valid account types	read
`refresh_accounts`	Request account data refresh	read
`create_manual_account`	Create manual account	write
`update_account`	Update account settings	write
`delete_account`	Delete an account	write
Transactions
`get_transactions`	Get transactions with filtering (date, account, category, tag, search, needs_review, and more)	read
`get_transaction_details`	Get full transaction detail	read
`get_transactions_summary`	Aggregate transaction stats	read
`get_transaction_splits`	Get split information	read
`get_recurring_transactions`	Get recurring transactions	read
`find_merchant_id_by_name`	Search recent transactions for a merchant and return distinct IDs	read
`create_transaction`	Create new transaction	write
`update_transaction`	Update existing transaction (clear notes with `clear_notes`, unlink goal with `clear_goal`)	write
`delete_transaction`	Delete a transaction	write
`update_transaction_splits`	Create/modify/delete splits	write
`update_recurring_merchant`	Mark/unmark a merchant as recurring, update its frequency/amount, or deactivate it — `is_recurring` is required on every call (requires `--enable-write`)	write
Tags
`get_transaction_tags`	Get all tags	read
`create_transaction_tag`	Create new tag	write
`delete_transaction_tag`	Delete a tag	write
`set_transaction_tags`	Set tags on a transaction	write
Categories
`get_transaction_categories`	Get all categories	read
`get_transaction_category_groups`	Get category groups	read
`create_transaction_category`	Create a category	write
`delete_transaction_category`	Delete a category	write
Rules
`get_transaction_rules`	List every transaction rule with its criteria, actions, and recent application stats	read
`create_transaction_rule`	Create a transaction rule with full criteria + actions (category, tags, merchant, amount, splits…)	write
`update_transaction_rule`	Update a rule by id; merges overrides onto the current rule (handles Monarch's REPLACE semantics)	write
`delete_transaction_rule`	Delete a rule by ID	write
Budgets & Cashflow
`get_budgets`	Get budget information	read
`get_cashflow`	Get cashflow analysis	read
`get_cashflow_summary`	Get cashflow summary	read
`set_budget_amount`	Set budget for category	write
Other
`get_subscription_details`	Get subscription status	read
`get_credit_history`	Get credit score history	read

Testing

This project has two complementary test surfaces:

1. Mocked unit tests (the quality gate) — fast, offline, no Monarch connection. These run in CI and must stay green:

bash

uv run pytest tests/

The Monarch client is mocked, so these never touch a real account. Live e2e tests (below) are deselected by default.

2. Live end-to-end (e2e) integration tests — exercise the MCP tools against a real Monarch account to verify they handle the live API robustly (adversarial/edge inputs, server-side error paths). They are opt-in and never run in CI:

bash

MONARCH_LIVE_TESTS=1 uv run pytest tests/integration -m integration

Prerequisites: a stored keyring token (run python login_setup.py once), or MONARCH_EMAIL / MONARCH_PASSWORD in the environment. Without these, the suite skips. The tests create and delete data prefixed with MCP-Test- and self-clean (a post-suite sweep removes any residue). See tests/integration/README.md for details and safety notes.

There is also a separate agent test skill (.claude/skills/test-monarch-mcp/) that drives an AI agent to verify it calls the tools correctly — distinct from the two pytest suites above.

🙏 Acknowledgments

Forked from @robcerda's monarch-mcp-server, maintained by vargahis.

Built on the monarchmoneycommunity Python library.

Thanks to:

@robcerda for the original MCP server
@hammem for the original monarchmoney library
@bradleyseanf for the community fork

License

MIT License