Connect Nethaven MCP to Claude or ChatGPT

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the open standard AI assistants use to connect to outside tools, and Nethaven runs an MCP server you connect with a single OAuth sign-in, no API keys involved. In practice that means Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor can read your live accounts and answer real questions, turning something like a monthly money review into a conversation instead of a spreadsheet session.

What can you ask the assistant about your Nethaven data?

Once connected, the assistant reads your live Nethaven data, not a snapshot or an export, so the answers reflect your accounts right now. The same connection that reads your subscriptions or checking account balance can also make small changes when you ask for them:

• “What’s my net worth right now?”
• “How much did I spend on dining last month?”
• “Which subscriptions have gone up in price?”
• “Log a $42 dinner at Nobu.”
• “Set my grocery budget to $600.”

Because the assistant is reading live data instead of a stale export, a question like "which subscriptions have gone up in price" reflects this month's renewals, not whatever you happened to export weeks ago. That's the actual advantage over the old copy-paste-a-CSV workflow: the answer is never out of date.

What can't the AI assistant do?

This is the part that matters most for a financial app, so it is worth being blunt. The assistant cannot:

• Delete any data
• Link or unlink bank accounts
• Move money
• Make bulk changes
• Access anything outside your own account

Every write action, adding a transaction, changing a category, shows a confirmation step in the assistant before Nethaven does anything. You approve each one individually, the same way you'd approve a payment request rather than let an app move money silently. And you can revoke access any time from Settings → Connect AI assistant, which cuts the connection instantly because nothing was ever copied out.

What actually happens when you connect an assistant?

There is no API key, no script, and no terminal. The assistant signs in as you, just like a mobile app would:

1. You paste one URL into your assistant’s settings.
2. A login window opens, it is your normal Nethaven sign-in.
3. You approve the connection.
4. The assistant can now answer financial questions using your real data.

How to connect

1. Open your assistant’s connectors or MCP settings.
2. Choose “Add custom connector” or “Add MCP server”.
3. Paste: https://api.nethaven.app/mcp
4. Sign in to Nethaven when prompted.
5. Approve individual tool calls before the assistant makes changes.

Where to find the setting in each client:

• Claude: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector.
• ChatGPT: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector (where available on your plan).
• Cursor: Settings → MCP → Add new MCP server.

For the full step-by-step with screenshots, see the Connect AI assistant guide or the MCP feature overview.

How is this different from giving an assistant an API key?

Plenty of tools connect to AI assistants through a static API key you generate once and paste into a config file. That key doesn't expire on its own, and if it leaks into a screenshot, a shared repo, or the wrong chat log, whoever has it gets your data until you notice and rotate it. MCP's OAuth sign-in is scoped per assistant instead: Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor each authenticate separately, none of them holds a long-lived secret, and revoking one leaves the others connected.

This is not a Nethaven convention, it is what the protocol requires. The MCP authorization specification builds on OAuth 2.1 and mandates PKCE on the authorization code flow, Protected Resource Metadata (RFC 9728) for server discovery, and Resource Indicators (RFC 8707) so a token is bound to the specific server it was issued for. That last requirement is the one that matters most in practice: a server must reject a token minted for a different service, which is precisely the failure mode a shared API key invites.

Does connecting an AI assistant require Nethaven Pro?

Yes. The AI assistant connection requires an active Nethaven Pro subscription. See pricing for details.