Search transactions across all accounts by payee name, notes, or amount range.
AI agents call search_transactions 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 queries transaction data for filtering and analysis purposes. It does not create, modify, delete, or execute any financial operations. While the server manages financial data, this particular tool only reads existing transaction information, making it a Read category risk with low severity.
From the tool's definition Tool description states 'Search transactions across all accounts by payee name, notes, or amount range.' The verb 'search' and the readonly query nature (no transaction creation, modification, or deletion) indicate data retrieval without side effects.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
Search transactions across all accounts by payee name, notes, or amount range. 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 search_transactions: 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.
search_transactions 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 search_transactions 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 search_transactions. 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.
search_transactions 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.
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