Claude Desktop

Connect to a server (OAuth) — recommended

If someone — you, or someone in your household — is running the self-hosted server, this is the recommended way to connect: you log into YNAB with your own account instead of sharing a token. Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, name it YNAB, and enter the server’s URL (https://<your-hostname>/mcp). Claude Desktop walks you through logging into YNAB and choosing read-only or full access; the connection persists after that. (Needs a Claude Desktop build with custom-connector / remote-MCP support.)

Alternate: stdio + Personal Access Token

No server to run, but a single token stands in for your own login — the right trade when you’re the only person using this. Edit Claude Desktop’s config file — %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS — and add an entry under mcpServers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ynab": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@redlinelabs/ynab-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "YNAB_TOKEN": "your-personal-access-token",
        "YNAB_BUDGET_ID": "last-used"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. See the Quick start for where to get a token, and Trust for what YNAB_READ_ONLY changes if you’d rather add it here too.