Connect an AI Assistant (MCP)

MCP - the Model Context Protocol - lets an AI assistant read your financial data so you can ask it questions in plain language. How your spending compares to last month, how close you are to a savings goal, what your week looks like.

Cadence Money officially supports three assistants:

• Claude - listed in Claude’s connector directory.
• ChatGPT - our plugin is in review with OpenAI. Until it is approved you can add Cadence Money yourself, below.
• Muse - our connector is in review with Meta. We will update this article once it is available.

Any other assistant that supports MCP servers can connect too, such as Gemini and command-line tools like Claude Code. Every one of them uses the same secure sign-in and gets the same read-only access.

1. In Claude, open Customize → Connectors and choose Discover. You can also click + in a chat and choose Add connectors.
2. Search for Cadence, open it and choose Connect.
3. A Cadence Money sign-in page opens. Sign in, review the access you are granting and approve it.

Once our plugin is approved you will find Cadence Money in ChatGPT’s app directory, and connecting is a single tap. Until then, ChatGPT plans that offer developer mode can add Cadence Money as a custom app:

1. In ChatGPT’s settings, open the apps and connectors section and turn on Developer mode under its advanced settings.
2. Create a new app, name it Cadence Money and enter the server address: https://my.cadencemoney.com/mcp
3. Sign in to Cadence Money when asked and approve the access.

ChatGPT does not always reach for a connected app on its own. If it answers from general knowledge instead of your numbers, mention Cadence Money in the question, such as “Using Cadence Money, how am I doing on my budgets?”

Our connector for Meta’s Muse is in review. Once it is approved you will find Cadence Money in Muse’s connector directory, and you connect it with the same sign-in described above.

For any other assistant that supports MCP, the exact wording varies, but the steps are the same:

1. In your assistant, open its connectors or integrations settings and choose to add a custom MCP server.
2. Enter the Cadence Money server address: https://my.cadencemoney.com/mcp
3. Your assistant opens a Cadence Money sign-in page. Sign in and review the access you are granting.
4. Approve, and you are returned to your assistant, now connected.

There is nothing to switch on inside Cadence Money first, and no key to generate or paste anywhere.

In a command-line tool there is no settings screen, so you add the same address as a command instead. In Claude Code, run claude mcp add --transport http cadence https://my.cadencemoney.com/mcp and then /mcp to sign in. Your browser opens the same Cadence Money sign-in page, and the tool is connected once you approve.

Once connected, an assistant can read the same kinds of information you see in the app:

• Transactions, accounts and balances.
• Budgets, spending reports and insights.
• Net worth, assets and liabilities.
• Investment holdings - the ones you track by hand and the positions your broker syncs in.
• Income, total compensation and recurring bills.
• Goals and cash-flow forecasts.
• A summary of your current week.

Portfolio and net worth questions now cover bank-synced investment positions as well as the holdings you entered yourself, so “how is my portfolio doing?” reads the whole picture rather than half of it. One thing to know before you trust a gain figure: many institutions report no cost basis for a synced position at all. Where that happens the assistant is told the cost is unknown rather than zero, and leaves that position out of the gain and loss totals entirely. See Synced Investments.

In a household, the assistant sees what is shared with the household plus your own private items, never another member’s private ones. WorryFree figures (your limit, spending and carryover) leave private items out, exactly as the app does, so a WorryFree total can be lower than a list of every transaction the assistant can read.

Ask something like “how is my week going?” and the assistant gets a purpose-built weekly summary rather than trying to divide your monthly figures itself: income received and still expected, bills paid and still due with their dates, your weekly spending allowance and what is left of it, and what the week is projected to net.

It follows the same rules the app does. Weeks run Sunday to Saturday, spending is counted up to today while commitments cover the whole week, and annual budgets are not sliced down. It deliberately does not produce a single “safe to spend” number, because the app does not have one either. See Weekly Budgeting.

Weeks are worked out in the timezone on your profile, so if you are travelling the assistant may disagree with your device about which week it is.

• The assistant answers without your numbers. Check that Cadence Money is switched on for this conversation, then name it in your question.
• Sign-in asks for a code. If you use two-factor authentication, enter the code from your authenticator app on the Cadence Money sign-in page, exactly as you would in the app.
• It worked, then stopped. Changing your password, turning two-factor authentication on or off, or turning on biometric unlock disconnects every connected app. Reconnect it from your assistant and sign in again.
• It says your plan has ended. The connection needs an active Cadence Money plan or free trial. Renew your plan and the same connection works again without reconnecting.
• It says to slow down. Each account can make 60 requests a minute and 500 a day. Wait a minute and ask again.

Connecting uses a standard secure sign-in, so you never share your Cadence Money password with the assistant, and access is scoped to read-only.

To disconnect, open Settings → Security → Connected Apps in Cadence Money, find the app and tap Disconnect. It loses access straight away - not when its current credential runs out - and nothing else you have connected is affected. Removing the connection from the assistant’s own settings works too; doing it from Cadence Money is the side you can be sure of.

Changing your Cadence Money password disconnects every connected app at once. That is the move to reach for if you think something has access it should not and you are not sure what. Turning two-factor authentication on or off, and turning on biometric unlock for a device, do the same thing - so an assistant that stops answering just after you set up Face ID has not broken, it has been disconnected. Reconnect it and it stays connected. Full detail in Security.