---
name: finance-pulse
description: "Use when the user asks how they're doing financially, wants a spending check-in, asks about free money or discretionary budget, or says 'pulse'. Read-only — never writes to Copilot Money."
---

# Finance Pulse

## When to use

- The user asks how they're doing financially or wants a check-in
- The user asks about "free money" or discretionary budget
- The user says "pulse" or asks for a spending summary

## Do NOT use if

- The user wants a specific affordability decision → use `/finance`
- The user wants to fix categories or clean transactions → use `/finance-cleanup`

Give the user a 30-second financial check-in. One number, a few flags, prospective framing. Read-only — this skill never writes.

## Phase 1 — Gather Data

1. **Read the user profile** at `~/.claude/copilot-money/user-profile.md`. If the file doesn't exist: run `mkdir -p ~/.claude/copilot-money`, then copy `skills/user-profile.template.md` (relative to the copilot-money-mcp repo root) to the profile path. First-time bootstrap may require CWD = repo root for the template read. Note:
   - Income & Obligations (if populated): monthly income, rent, fixed costs
   - Savings & Goals: targets and active goals
   - Irregular Expenses: amortized monthly reserve
   - Preferences: what not to flag, categories they care about
   - Communication Style: detail level, tone, framing
   - If Income & Obligations is empty, this is a first run — Phase 2 will handle bootstrapping.

2. **Pull data.** Use these MCP tools in parallel:
   - `get_accounts` — all accounts with balances (for net worth and available cash)
   - `get_transactions` with `period: "this_month"`, `exclude_transfers: true` — current month spending
   - `get_transactions` with `period: "last_month"`, `exclude_transfers: true` — last month for comparison
   - `get_transactions` with `period: "last_90_days"`, `exclude_transfers: true` — for rolling averages
   - `get_categories` with `view: "list"`, `period: "this_month"` — category spending this month
   - `get_categories` with `view: "list"`, `period: "last_90_days"` — category spending for 90-day baseline
   - `get_recurring_transactions` with `period: "last_90_days"` — subscriptions and recurrings
   - `get_budgets` with `active_only: true` — any budgets the user set
   - `get_goals` with `active_only: true` — savings goals

   Paginate `get_transactions` if needed (100 per page). Use `limit` and `offset`.

3. **Handle large datasets and do all math via Python.** Transaction data will be large. Do NOT try to hold all transactions in your context, and do NOT do mental math on more than ~10 numbers. Instead:
   - Use Python via Bash for ALL aggregations, averages, projections, grouping, and arithmetic
   - Save transaction data to temp files and process with Python scripts
   - Only bring summary statistics back into your context for presentation

## Phase 1.5 — Profile Freshness Check

Run this BETWEEN Phase 1's read and Phase 2's compute. It catches the common case where the profile was bootstrapped months ago and the underlying numbers (income, fixed obligations, account roles) have drifted.

1. **Parse `last_verified` from each profile section's HTML comment.** Sections to check:
   - `## Income & Obligations`
   - `## Irregular Expenses (Sinking Funds)`
   - `## Accounts`

   `## Savings & Goals` is intentionally NOT in this list — the savings target comes live from `get_goals` each session, so there's no stale-profile concern. The template doesn't carry a `last_verified` stamp for that section.

   Each section has a comment of the form `<!-- last_verified: YYYY-MM-DD -->` or `<!-- last_verified: never -->`. Extract the date.

2. **Read `staleness_threshold_days` from `## Preferences`.** It's stored as a comment of the form `<!-- staleness_threshold_days: <N> ... -->` — extract the first integer after the colon (any trailing text is human-readable documentation only). Default to `90` if the comment is absent or the value can't be parsed.

3. **For each section older than the threshold (or with `last_verified: never`):**

   - **Interactive mode (default):** Prompt the user once, listing every stale section at once. For each section, format the freshness clause based on the stamp:
     - `last_verified: never` → "never verified"
     - valid date → "last verified [N] days ago" (where N is today minus the stamp date)

     Example prompt: "Your profile sections are stale: [Income & Obligations] last verified 142 days ago; [Accounts] never verified. Re-bootstrap? [y/skip]". A single y/skip applies to all stale sections.
   - **Scheduled mode (per Rule "Scheduled runs are silent"):** Skip the prompt; tag each stale section for the Phase 3 warning prefix and proceed.

4. **If the user picks `y`:** run only the bootstrap subflow for each stale section (the corresponding step from Phase 2.1: step 1 for Income, step 2 for Obligations, step 3 for Accounts, step 4 for Irregular Expenses). Skip the bootstrap steps for non-stale sections. After each section's bootstrap saves to profile, also update its `<!-- last_verified: -->` comment to today's date in YYYY-MM-DD form.

5. **If the user picks `skip`:** proceed with stale data. Pass the list of stale section names + their `last_verified` dates to Phase 3 for warning output.

6. **If no sections are stale:** skip Phase 1.5 silently — no output.

## Phase 2 — Compute Financial State

### 2.1 Bootstrap (first run only)

If `~/.claude/copilot-money/user-profile.md` has empty Income & Obligations section, bootstrap it:

1. **Detect income.** Use Python to scan the 90-day transaction data for recurring credits (negative amounts) from the same source. Look for:
   - Payroll deposits: same source, similar amounts, biweekly or monthly cadence
   - Other regular income: dividends, side income, etc.
   - Present findings to user: "I see biweekly deposits of ~$X from [source]. Is this your primary income?"
   - Calculate monthly income (biweekly × 26/12, monthly × 1)

2. **Detect fixed obligations.** From recurring transactions, identify:
   - Rent/mortgage (largest recurring, often labeled)
   - Utilities (ISP, phone, electricity — check user profile Cleanup Preferences for known merchants)
   - Insurance, loan payments
   - Present: "I found these fixed monthly costs: [list]. Anything missing or wrong?"

3. **Detect account roles.** From `get_accounts`:
   - Primary checking: highest-activity depository account
   - Savings: depository accounts with low transaction volume
   - Credit cards: list with recent activity level
   - Present: "Your primary checking appears to be [name]. Savings in [name]. Cards: [list]. Right?"

4. **Detect irregular expenses.** Pull a separate 13-month transaction window using `start_date` and `end_date` (e.g., `start_date: "2025-03-13"`, `end_date: "2026-04-13"` — there is no "last_13_months" period shorthand). This is NOT the 90-day window used for trends — annual charges need a full year to detect. Scan for:
   - Annual/semi-annual charges (large one-off amounts from merchants that appear yearly — e.g., car insurance, Amazon Prime annual, domain renewals)
   - Known irregular categories: car maintenance, medical, insurance premiums
   - Amortize detected amounts to monthly: annual ÷ 12, semi-annual ÷ 6
   - Present: "I found these irregular expenses: [list]. Monthly reserve: ~$X"

5. **Save to profile.** After user confirms, update the relevant sections of `~/.claude/copilot-money/user-profile.md`. For each section saved, also update its `<!-- last_verified: -->` HTML comment to today's date in YYYY-MM-DD form (this is what Phase 1.5 reads to decide if the section is stale). On subsequent runs, skip bootstrapping and read the profile directly.

### 2.2 Compute Free Money

Use Python via Bash for all arithmetic. The formula:

```
Free Money = Net Monthly Income
           − Fixed Obligations (rent, utilities, insurance, loans)
           − Savings Target (from goals or profile)
           − Amortized Irregular Expenses (sinking fund reserve)
           − Already Spent This Month (non-fixed, non-savings spending)
```

Steps:
1. Sum fixed obligations from profile (or detected in bootstrap)
2. Sum savings targets from `get_goals` or profile. If `get_goals` returns 0 AND the profile has no savings target, set this term to 0 and note it for Phase 3 output: "No savings target set — Free Money doesn't reserve anything for savings."
3. Sum amortized irregular expenses from profile
4. Sum this month's discretionary spending: total spending minus transactions that match fixed obligation merchants (by name/category). Do NOT subtract the profile's fixed amount — subtract the actual charges from those merchants. This ensures over-charges (e.g., rent higher than usual) are correctly captured rather than silently inflating Free Money.
5. Free Money = Net Income − Fixed − Savings − Irregular − Already Spent

Also compute:
- **Days remaining in month** (today through end of month)
- **Daily discretionary budget** = Free Money ÷ days remaining
- **Runway** = Free Money ÷ (average daily discretionary spend from last 90 days)

### 2.3 Category Trends

Use Python to compare this month's spending by category against 90-day rolling monthly averages:

- For each category with spending this month:
  - Calculate 90-day monthly average (total ÷ 3)
  - Calculate current month pace: (amount spent ÷ days elapsed) × days in month
  - Flag if projected spending exceeds average by threshold:
    - Stable categories (utilities, rent, insurance): >20% above average AND >$25 absolute increase
    - Medium variance (groceries, gas, healthcare): >50% above average AND >$25 absolute increase
    - High variance (dining, entertainment, shopping, travel): >100% above average AND >$50 absolute increase
  - Classify each category's variance tier by checking its historical coefficient of variation (std dev / mean):
    - CV < 0.2 → stable
    - CV 0.2-0.5 → medium
    - CV > 0.5 → high variance

### 2.4 Subscription & Recurring Check

From `get_recurring_transactions`:
- Sort by cost (highest first)
- Flag any that missed their expected date by 7+ days (possible cancellation or billing issue)
- Flag price drift: amount changed >5% for charges <$50, >3% for $50-200, >2% for >$200
- Flag any new recurring detected that isn't in the Copilot subscriptions list

### 2.5 Anomaly Scan

Scan this month's transactions for:
- **Unknown merchants:** Merchants that don't appear in the 90-day history at all (first-time charges)
- **Potential duplicates:** Same merchant + same amount within 24 hours (flag if ≥2 for large purchases, ≥3 for small <$10)
- **Unusually large charges:** Single transactions >2x the merchant's historical average amount

Prioritize using 3-tier system:
- **Tier 1 (always surface):** Potential duplicates, recurring price increases, missed recurring cycles
- **Tier 2 (selective — include if <5 total flags):** Unknown merchants >$20, budget overspend
- **Tier 3 (digest only — mention briefly if at all):** Category spending spikes, dormant category reactivation

## Phase 3 — Present

**Tone:** Match `~/.claude/copilot-money/user-profile.md` Communication Style. Default: blunt, simple, dollar amounts.

**Stale-data warning prefix (if Phase 1.5 flagged any stale sections that the user chose to skip).** Prepend the output with a warning block, then continue with The Number / Flags / Quick Stats as normal:

> ⚠️ Using stale profile data:
> - Income & Obligations: last verified [date] ([N] days ago)
> - Accounts: never verified
>
> Re-run with `re-bootstrap` if these numbers feel off.

Format each line based on the stamp value: a real date shows "[date] ([N] days ago)"; `never` shows "never verified".

Only include sections that were actually skipped — don't list every section unconditionally.

**Structure — always this order:**

### The Number

Open with the Free Money figure, framed prospectively:

> **You have $X left to spend this month.** That's $Y/day for the next Z days.

If runway is notably short or long, add context:
- Runway < 7 days: "That's tight — you'll need to coast."
- Runway > 30 days: "You're well ahead of pace."
- Runway 7-30 days: no extra comment needed.

If this is the first run (bootstrap happened), frame it as: "Based on what I can see, here's where you stand:" and note that the numbers will get more accurate over time.

### Flags (3-5 max)

Present Tier 1 flags first, then Tier 2 if room. Each flag is one sentence:

- Category spike: "Dining is on pace for $X this month — that's 2x your usual $Y."
- Missed recurring: "Your Spotify charge ($9.99) is 10 days overdue. Cancelled or billing issue?"
- Price drift: "Netflix went from $15.49 to $22.99 this month."
- Duplicate: "Two identical $47.23 charges at Target on April 5 — intentional?"
- Unknown merchant: "First-time charge: $89.00 from 'ACME CORP' on April 8."
- Budget overspend: "Groceries budget ($400): $380 spent with 18 days left."

**Framing rules:**
- Prospective, not retrospective: "You have $X left for dining" not "You spent $X on dining"
- Dollar amounts, not percentages (unless user profile says otherwise)
- Name the merchant/category specifically
- If no flags worth surfacing: "Nothing unusual this month. You're on track."

### Quick Stats (optional — only if user profile detail level is "moderate" or "detailed")

If the user wants more detail, append:
- Top 5 spending categories this month with amounts and vs. average
- Subscriptions total: $X/month across N services
- Net worth snapshot: $X (assets $Y − liabilities $Z)

**Cap total output.** The entire pulse should fit in one screen — roughly 10-15 lines for "simple" detail level, up to 25 for "detailed". If you have more than 5 flags, pick the highest-priority ones.

## Phase 4 — Update Profile

After presenting, silently check if any profile sections should be updated:

- If Free Money components were computed for the first time, save them (this was handled in bootstrap)
- If new recurring merchants were detected, note them in profile under Preferences if user confirms
- Update any stale numbers (e.g., income changed, new fixed obligation detected)

**Do not ask the user about profile updates during pulse.** Pulse is a quick check-in. If profile needs significant updates, suggest: "Your profile might be out of date — want to run a quick update?"

## Rules

1. **Read-only.** This skill never writes to Copilot Money. No `set_*`, no `create_*`, no `review_*` calls.
2. **3-5 flags max.** Never dump 15 findings. Pick the most important ones. Alert fatigue kills usefulness.
3. **One screen.** The entire output should fit on one screen. If it doesn't, cut the least important parts.
4. **Respect profile.** Don't flag spending the user said to ignore. Don't flag categories they don't care about.
5. **First run is special.** If profile is mostly empty, spend time bootstrapping — ask the user to confirm detected income, obligations, and account roles before computing Free Money. This is a one-time cost for accuracy.
6. **Scheduled runs are silent.** When triggered by a schedule (not interactive), output the pulse as a report without asking questions. Use whatever profile data is available. Note any profile gaps as "could not compute X — profile missing Y."
7. **Income is intentionally uncategorized.** Income transactions (negative amounts) have no category on purpose. Never flag them as uncategorized or missing a category.
8. **Large datasets go to disk.** MCP tool responses >100KB are saved to temp files instead of returned inline. Use Python via Bash to process these files. This happens routinely with `get_transactions`, `get_accounts`, and `get_recurring_transactions`.
9. **Reference existing budgets.** The user has budgets set up in Copilot Money (`get_budgets`). Use these to inform spending flags — if a category has a budget, flag when spending exceeds or approaches the budget amount, not just when it exceeds the 90-day average.