Connect Your AI Assistant

BudgetLabs has a public MCP (Model Context Protocol) server. That's the open standard AI assistants use to connect to outside apps — which means Claude, ChatGPT, and most other modern assistants can read your budget and answer questions about it, with your permission.

Everything is read-only. A connected assistant can look at your numbers; it can't add, edit, or delete anything. You sign in with your own BudgetLabs account, you approve the access, and you can revoke it any time.

What a connected assistant can see

Once connected, your assistant can answer questions like these from your real data:

• "How's my budget looking this month?" — income, planned, spent, and remaining by category
• "What did I spend on groceries in May?" — spending summaries, trends, and transaction search
• "When will my card be paid off if I add $100 a month?" — debt accounts, payoff plans, and what-if simulations
• "What's my cash flow look like over the next six months?" — the rolling forecast
• Savings accounts and goals, annual renewals, and BudgetLabs help articles

Connect Claude

Works on Claude Free, Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise. Free accounts can have one custom connector.

1. In Claude (web or desktop), open your settings and choose Connectors — it's under the Customize section, not Settings.
2. Click Add (top right), then Custom connector.
3. Paste the server URL: https://www.budgetlabs.io/api/mcp — no client ID or secret needed.
4. Click Add, then sign in with your BudgetLabs account when prompted and approve access.

On Team and Enterprise, custom connectors are added by an owner from Organization settings → Connectors → Add → Custom → Web instead.

Anthropic shifts this UI around too — if the menus don't match, search your settings for "connectors".

That's it. Ask Claude something like "What's my remaining grocery budget this month?"

Connect ChatGPT

ChatGPT supports custom MCP connectors on paid plans (Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, Edu) on the web, behind its developer-mode toggle:

1. In ChatGPT, open Settings and enable Developer mode (look under Apps & Connectors → Advanced settings; on some versions it's under Security and login).
2. Back in Settings → Apps & Connectors (or chatgpt.com/plugins), choose the + to add a new connector.
3. Give it a name like BudgetLabs, and paste the MCP server URL: https://www.budgetlabs.io/api/mcp.
4. Complete the OAuth sign-in with your BudgetLabs account when prompted.

OpenAI moves this UI around fairly often — if the menus don't match, look for "connectors" or "developer mode" in ChatGPT's settings search.

Connect Cursor or another bearer-token MCP client

Clients that take a bearer token instead of OAuth can use a short-lived API token:

1. In BudgetLabs, go to Settings → API & Integrations.
2. Click Generate Secret and copy the token.
3. In your MCP client, add a server with URL https://www.budgetlabs.io/api/mcp and the token as a Bearer authorization header.

Tokens expire after 1 hour — generate a fresh one when needed.

Security and privacy

• Read-only. The read scope is the only scope the server grants. No assistant can change your data through this connection.
• Your data only. Every request runs under your account with the same row-level security as the app itself.
• Revocable. Remove the connector in your assistant's settings any time — your assistant revokes its access when you disconnect. API tokens expire on their own within the hour.
• Private. BudgetLabs never sees your assistant conversation; the assistant only receives what the tools return. See our privacy policy for the full picture.