finance-pulse

Finance Pulse

When to use

• The user asks how they're doing financially or wants a check-in
• The user asks about "free money" or discretionary budget
• The user says "pulse" or asks for a spending summary

Do NOT use if

• The user wants a specific affordability decision → use /finance
• The user wants to fix categories or clean transactions → use /finance-cleanup

Give the user a 30-second financial check-in. One number, a few flags, prospective framing. Read-only — this skill never writes.

Phase 1 — Gather Data

1. Read the user profile at ~/.claude/copilot-money/user-profile.md. If the file doesn't exist: run mkdir -p ~/.claude/copilot-money, then copy skills/user-profile.template.md (relative to the copilot-money-mcp repo root) to the profile path. First-time bootstrap may require CWD = repo root for the template read. Note:

   • Income & Obligations (if populated): monthly income, rent, fixed costs
   • Savings & Goals: targets and active goals
   • Irregular Expenses: amortized monthly reserve
   • Preferences: what not to flag, categories they care about
   • Communication Style: detail level, tone, framing
   • If Income & Obligations is empty, this is a first run — Phase 2 will handle bootstrapping.

2. Check the mode, then pull data. The server runs in one of two modes, and the tool names differ. If the tool list has get_transactions_live (live), you are in live mode — always the case when write tools are on. If it has get_transactions (cache) instead, you are in cache mode. Each step below names the tool for each mode; call only the one for your mode. Run these in parallel:

   • Accounts with balances (net worth, available cash): get_accounts_live (live) / get_accounts (cache).
   • Transactions for three windows: get_transactions_live (live) / get_transactions (cache), each with exclude_transfers: true and one of period: "this_month", period: "last_month", period: "last_90_days". Both tools take these arguments.
     • In live mode also pass fields: ["default", "type", "recurring_id"] to get_transactions_live (live): type is how 2.2 keeps REGULAR rows only, and recurring_id is what the 2.5 price-drift check groups by. Neither is in the default row.
     • In cache mode no fields argument is needed on get_transactions (cache): the default row has what this skill computes from it (amounts, category names, merchant names, dates).
   • The category list (names, and which categories are excluded): get_categories_live (live) / get_categories (cache). Per-category spending is computed from the transaction rows (2.2, 2.4), not read from this tool, so the figure is the same in both modes.
   • Recurring charges, live mode: get_recurring_live (live), default rows. These carry state, nextPaymentDate and nextPaymentAmount but no charge history: their payments holds only the next payment.
   • Recurring charges, cache mode: get_recurring_transactions (cache) with period: "last_90_days" and fields: ["default", "transactions"]. The fields argument is what the cache-mode price-drift check in 2.5 reads: the matched per-charge transactions array is not in the default row.
   • This month's unpaid bills, live mode: get_upcoming_recurrings_live (live). Needed for the "spent this month" figure in 2.2; see the caveat there about its horizon.
   • Budgets, live mode: get_budgets_live (live) with months_window: 1. Only the current month is needed, and the default returns 12 months per budget.
   • Budgets, cache mode: get_budgets (cache) with active_only: true.
   • Savings goals: get_goals with active_only: true (both modes).