MCP + Agent API
Give your AI agent your real financial picture
Claude, Cursor, Codex, and other agents can reason about money. But without context, they are guessing. Shelter's MCP server gives them scoped access to your own Shelter forecasts, alerts, and affordability answers.
No Plaid developer account required. You connect your own accounts inside Shelter; your agent receives Shelter-generated answers, never Plaid credentials, Plaid tokens, or general-purpose bank connectivity.
Up and running in three steps
The same read-only data that powers the Shelter app, available to your agent.
A sealed letter, not your bank keys.
Step 1: Connect your own accounts
Link your accounts inside Shelter like any other user. No Plaid developer account is needed; Shelter uses a read-only Plaid connection to build your financial picture.
Step 2: Create an API key
Generate a scoped key from your Shelter account. Keys are read-only by default, belong only to you, and are revocable anytime.
Step 3: Add Shelter to your agent
Use the setup for Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor, or another MCP client. Your agent can now call ten Shelter money tools.
Connect the agent you already use
Create a key in Shelter, then copy the client-specific setup shown with it. Codex takes one terminal command, Claude Desktop uses JSON, and Cursor uses MCP settings.
codex mcp add shelter --env SHELTER_API_KEY=wv_your_key_here -- npx -y @shelter.money/mcp{
"mcpServers": {
"shelter": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@shelter.money/mcp"],
"env": {
"SHELTER_API_KEY": "wv_your_key_here"
}
}
}
}Codex examples
Install it, then ask a real money question
- “Use Shelter to tell me what I can safely spend before payday.”
- “Can I afford a $120 purchase without putting an upcoming bill at risk?”
- “Review my next 14 days and explain the first cash-flow risk I should handle.”
- “Show my current Shelter alerts and help me choose the most urgent one.”
Cursor users can paste the same npx server into MCP settings. Without a Shelter key, the server starts but suppresses all financial values, it never substitutes sample numbers that could be mistaken for yours.
Ten tools your agent can call
Every tool is read-only. Your agent gets answers, not access to move money.
shelter_status
Financial snapshot: safe-to-spend, balances, upcoming bills, health score.
shelter_runway
Days until money runs out, plus a daily budget to stretch it.
shelter_forecast
Verified 14-day view of the canonical 30-day balance forecast.
shelter_alerts
Unusual spending, upcoming bills, and low-balance warnings.
shelter_opportunities
Savings opportunities: unused subscriptions and negotiable bills.
shelter_context
A natural-language summary of your full financial situation.
shelter_affordability
Check whether a specific purchase fits, and see its impact before you buy.
shelter_coach_daily
Today's personalized coaching tip based on recent spending.
shelter_coach_advice
Targeted advice on debt, savings, bills, subscriptions, and negotiation.
shelter_ask
Ask Shelter any question about your money, in plain language.
What's included with your plan
API and MCP access is included with any active Shelter subscription. $9.99/month or $79/year, with a 14-day trial. No separate API plan to buy.
- Requests per minute
- 60
- Requests per day
- 10,000
- Shelter asks per day
- 100
- Without an API key
- Financial data suppressed
- Cost
- Included with any subscription
Your agent can look. It can never touch.
The Agent API follows the same read-only rule as the rest of Shelter.
Your account, your permission
A key authorizes only the financial context in its creator’s own Shelter account. It is not a credential for someone else’s bank data.
Not general-purpose bank connectivity
Agents receive Shelter-generated forecasts and answers, not Plaid credentials, Plaid tokens, or a raw bank-data API.
Keys are hashed at rest
API keys are stored as SHA-256 hashes. Shelter only ever shows you the key prefix after creation.
Scoped and read-only by default
Each key carries explicit scopes. The default grant is read-only: your agent can look, never act.
Per-key rate limits
Every key has its own per-minute and per-day limits, so a runaway loop cannot exhaust your account.
Revocable anytime
Delete a key from your Shelter account and it stops working immediately.
Plaid access is read-only
Shelter never moves money, cancels subscriptions, or modifies accounts. For you or for your agent.
Let your agent stop guessing
Connect your bank once, create a key, and every money question your agent answers starts from your real numbers.
Read-only by default. Revocable anytime.