Matt built Driggsby, a 75k-line Rust MCP server backed by Plaid, then wired it to Claude Code routines to automate daily financial emails and transaction anomaly alerts.
Key Takeaways
Driggsby took two months and a Plaid contract to build; it exposes balances, transactions, investments, and loan data as MCP tools.
Claude Code routines remove infra burden: write a prompt, attach an MCP connector, set a schedule – no agent-loop code or deployment needed.
The Gmail MCP connector only creates drafts, not sends; the fix was a custom email_me() tool inside Driggsby, locked to the owner’s verified address and Markdown-only bodies.
Routine runs are inspectable through a UI that mirrors an interactive Claude Code session, making debugging faster than a blind cron job.
Anomaly detection prompts (double charges, Amex pattern breaks, checking outflows over $500) are intentionally simple and refined over time through prompt edits, not code deploys.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters see Plaid access as a real practical barrier: the service is designed for companies, and whether an individual can get a contract at reasonable cost is an open question.
There is early interest in pushing this further toward LLM-powered personal financial advice, not just data aggregation and alerting.
Notable Comments
@mahemm: argues this Plaid-plus-MCP hookup is “all that’s needed to bootstrap” LLM-based personal financial advising, surprised the post stops at monitoring.
@joshka: raises whether a Plaid subscription is realistic for an individual rather than a company.
