Get all spending categories organized by groups. Use this to find category IDs for adding transactions.
AI agents call get_categories to retrieve information from Actual Budget MCP Server without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool retrieves and lists spending categories without modifying, creating, deleting, or executing any operations. It is a pure read operation that returns reference data needed for other financial operations. The low severity reflects minimal blast radius if misused—an AI could only enumerate categories, causing no data loss or financial impact.
From the tool's definition Tool name 'get_categories' and description 'Get all spending categories' indicate a retrieval operation with no side effects. The phrase 'Use this to find category IDs' confirms it serves a lookup/query purpose.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
Get all spending categories organized by groups. Use this to find category IDs for adding transactions. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Actual Budget MCP Server MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Actual Budget MCP Server MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for get_categories: 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 Budget MCP Server. Nothing to install.
get_categories 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 get_categories 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 get_categories. 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.
get_categories is provided by the Actual Budget MCP Server MCP server (yhc0712/actual-budget-mcp). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
Every MCP server has a record like this.
Type a name, get the same breakdown: verified identity, auth posture, risk grade, capabilities, recommended policy.
Teams ship this data inside their own products. See what a licence covers →