Carbure
Self-hosted household budget app: automatic bank sync (woob), auto-categorization, monthly budgets, trends, iPhone push alerts and a read-only MCP server for AI agents. Logiciel gestion budget familial gratuit
Install / Use
claude mcp add ltoinel -- npx -y github:ltoinel/CarbureIf the server publishes to npm under a different name, use that package instead — check the repo README.
MCP Server
Model Context Protocol server
Quality Score
Category
AutomationSupported Platforms
Our assessment of Carbure
Carbure scores 77/100 on our quality scale, 2582nd of 2,899 Automation skills we index.
Its MCP Server is 8.2 KB long, split into 7 sections with 2 code examples: a thorough specification that gives an agent plenty to work with.
It has 3 GitHub stars, so there is little community track record yet; judge it on its content.
Maintenance, license and trust
- The repository was last updated 2 days ago, so Carbure is actively maintained.
- It is released under the MIT license, a permissive license that allows use, modification and commercial use with attribution.
- Its trust signals score 92/100, with 1 caution from licensing, adoption, age or documentation. These come from repository metadata, not a code audit — read the skill file before letting an agent act on it.
Carbure compared with similar skills
All 4 of these similar skills score higher than Carbure; compare them before choosing.
| Skill | Score | Stars | Updated | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carbure (this skill)by ltoinel | 77 | 3 | 2d ago | MCP Server |
| Agent-Reachby Panniantong | 100 | 94.6k | 1d ago | CLAUDE.md |
| headroomby headroomlabs-ai | 100 | 74.8k | today | CLAUDE.md |
| CowAgentby zhayujie | 100 | 47.3k | today | CLAUDE.md |
| Scraplingby D4Vinci | 100 | 86.5k | today | MCP Server |
Frequently asked questions
- How do I install Carbure?
- Run
claude mcp add ltoinel -- npx -y github:ltoinel/Carbure. The install tabs above show the steps for each supported agent. - Which AI agents does Carbure work with?
- It is written for Claude Code and Claude Desktop, as a MCP Server file. Other agents that read the same format can often use it too.
- Is Carbure safe to use?
- It is MIT-licensed and scores 92/100 on trust signals. Skills are instructions an agent will follow, so read the file before installing it and do not approve commands you do not understand.
- Is Carbure still maintained?
- The repository was last updated 2 days ago, so Carbure is actively maintained.
Skill content
View source on GitHubWhy Carbure?
- 🔄 No manual entry: transactions arrive on their own from your bank every day, through woob — a direct connection, no third-party aggregator. Or import the statements of your bank (OFX, QIF, CSV, CAMT.053): Carbure spots the duplicates first.
- 🏷️ Automatic categorization: simple rules ("CARREFOUR → Groceries") sort every transaction. A new one? Pick its category and Carbure suggests the rule.
- 🎯 Monthly budgets: spent, remaining and overspent, category by category, at a glance. Budget the sub-categories and their parent adds them up — or set its own amount. The monthly flow shows where the money comes from and where it goes: click a category to see its transactions.
- 📈 Trends: income, spending and savings over 3, 6 or 12 months, compared with the previous period or the same period last year.
- ✅ Check-off: verify transactions in one click and filter those still to review.
- 🔔 iPhone alerts: a push after each sync, as soon as an expense exceeds the threshold you set, or when a rule you chose matches.
- 📊 Insights: your own monthly indicators (groceries, fuel, subscriptions…).
- 👨👩👧 Built for households: several users, shared accounts and data, each with their own language and devices; an administrator manages accounts, categories, rules, users and the configuration, and copies the ready-made command that schedules the sync.
- 🤖 Ask your AI agent about your money: a built-in, read-only MCP server — which you can turn off — answers questions like "how much did we spend on restaurants this year?" or "which budgets are we over?". Claude (web, Desktop, mobile) connects from the server URL alone, after your approval in the portal; Claude Code, ChatGPT, Cursor, Copilot and Gemini with an access token.
- 🔒 Everything stays with you: Carbure runs on your own server (a NAS is enough). No account to create, no aggregator, no cloud: your bank credentials and data stay in your local database. The only outbound connections are to your bank (woob) and, if you enable them, Apple's push notification service.
🌍 Bank coverage: Carbure relies on woob modules, which mainly cover French banks. The portal is available in English and French; amounts are in euros.
📱 iPhone app: the Carbure iOS app will soon be available on the App Store.
How does it compare?
| | Carbure | Firefly III | Actual Budget | Kresus | |---|---|---|---|---| | Bank connection | Direct, via woob | Third-party aggregators | Third-party aggregators | Direct, via woob | | Sub-categories adding up to their parent | ✅ | ➖ | ⚠️ | ➖ | | Several users sharing the same data | ✅ | ⚠️ | ✅ | ➖ | | Native iPhone app and push notifications | ✅ | ➖ | ➖ | ➖ | | Built-in MCP server for AI agents | ✅ | ➖ | ➖ | ➖ | | File import (OFX, QIF, CSV, CAMT.053) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ⚠️ | | Several currencies | ➖ | ✅ | ➖ | ⚠️ |
✅ yes · ⚠️ partly · ➖ no — 👉 Full comparison (in French): 23 criteria (hosting, bank data, budget, household and devices, API), with the strengths of each tool.
How it works
flowchart LR
bank[(Banks)] -->|woob| sync[Sync]
subgraph Carbure
sync --> rules[Categorization<br/>rules] --> db[(MariaDB)]
api[PHP REST API] <--> db
end
portal[Web portal] <--> api
ios[iOS app] <--> api
ai[AI agent] <-->|MCP| api
sync -->|APNs| push[iPhone notifications]
Quick start
With Docker (nginx, PHP and woob included):
git clone https://github.com/ltoinel/Carbure.git && cd Carbure/docker
docker compose up -d
Open http://localhost:8080/: the setup wizard handles everything (database,
administrator account, and optional starter categories, rules and insights) in three
clicks, with no command to run. Database upgrades are
automatic too. On a Synology NAS, follow the
tutorial.
👉 Detailed installation, configuration, API reference, data model and security: the documentation (in French).
Contributing
Contributions are welcome: read AGENTS.md (conventions, tests, definition of done) and the open tasks in TODO.md. Found a bug or have an idea? Open an issue. If Carbure is useful to you, a ⭐ helps others find it.
To develop, ./start.sh starts the development environment with Docker: the production
image and MariaDB, the code of the repository mounted live and a sample household
(http://localhost:8000/portal/, admin / admin-password). The tests (PHPUnit, portal
unit tests, Playwright end-to-end tests) are described in the
developer documentation (in French).
License
MIT © Ludovic Toinel
Third-party components
The Docker image bundles third-party software, unmodified, under its own license:
| Component | License | Source |
|---|---|---|
| woob (bank synchronization) | LGPL-3.0-or-later | gitlab.com/woob/woob (version set by WOOB_VERSION in docker/Dockerfile) |
| curl_cffi | MIT | github.com/lexiforest/curl_cffi |
| PHP, nginx, Alpine Linux | PHP License, BSD-2-Clause, various (BusyBox: GPL-2.0) | Official images php:8.3-fpm-alpine |
| Vue.js, CodeMirror, Roboto, Material Icons (portal) | MIT, MIT, OFL-1.1, Apache-2.0 | portal/vendor/ |
Carbure calls woob as a separate program; it can be replaced by another woob version
(virtual environment /opt/woob).
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Languages
Trust signals
From repository metadata: license, adoption, age and documentation. Not a code audit — see the Safety scan above for what the skill file itself contains.
