Get spending breakdown by category for a specified date range
AI agents call spending-by-category to retrieve information from Actual without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool retrieves and aggregates financial data (spending by category) for reporting/analysis purposes. It performs no modifications, deletions, or financial transactions. While it accesses financial data, the action itself is read-only querying, which is the least severe category.
From the tool's definition Tool name 'spending-by-category' and description 'Get spending breakdown by category for a specified date range' indicate a query/retrieval operation with no side effects.
Documented attack patterns abuse exactly the kind of access spending-by-category gives an agent:
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway — it sits between your AI agents and Actual, and nothing reaches the server without passing your rules. This is the rule we recommend for spending-by-category:
{
"version": "1",
"default": "deny",
"tools": {
"spending-by-category": {}
}
}spending-by-category is read-only, so it stays allowed — but everything else on the server is denied unless you say otherwise.
Free to start. No card required.
Get spending breakdown by category for a specified date range. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Actual MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Actual MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for spending-by-category: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches Actual. Nothing to install.
spending-by-category is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.
Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the spending-by-category rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.
Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for spending-by-category. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.
spending-by-category is provided by the Actual MCP server (s-stefanov/actual-mcp). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
Deterministic rules across all 25 Actual tools. Per-identity grants. Full audit log. Live in minutes. Nothing to install.
Free to start. No card required.
25 Actual tools catalogued and risk-classified — across an index of 42,500+ MCP servers.