pp-expensify

name	pp-expensify
description	File expenses and submit reports to Expensify in one line. Every command an agent should need, with a local cache so searches stay offline. Trigger phrases: `file an expense`, `submit my expense report`, `expense that`, `what did I expense this month`, `use expensify`, `run expensify`.
author	Matt Van Horn
license	Apache-2.0
argument-hint	<command> [args] | install cli|mcp
allowed-tools	Read Bash
metadata	{"openclaw":{"requires":{"bins":["expensify-pp-cli"]},"install":[{"kind":"go","bins":["expensify-pp-cli"],"module":"github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/productivity/expensify/cmd/expensify-pp-cli"}]}}

Expensify — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the expensify-pp-cli binary. You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill. If it is missing, install it first:

1. Install via the Printing Press installer. It defaults binaries to $HOME/.local/bin on macOS/Linux and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\PrintingPress\bin on Windows:

   npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install expensify --cli-only
   

2. Verify: expensify-pp-cli --version
3. Ensure the reported install directory is on $PATH for the agent/runtime that will invoke this skill.

If the npx install fails (no Node, offline, etc.), fall back to a direct Go install (requires Go 1.26.5 or newer). This installs into $GOPATH/bin (default $HOME/go/bin), so add that directory to $PATH instead:

go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/productivity/expensify/cmd/expensify-pp-cli@latest

If --version reports "command not found" after install, the runtime cannot see the binary directory on $PATH. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds.

expensify-pp-cli turns the Expensify web app into a terminal. Log in once, and every filing/reviewing/submitting task that used to require clicking through forms becomes a single command. A local SQLite store gives you offline search, rollups, dupe detection, and missing-receipt alerts that no other Expensify tool has.

When to Use This CLI

Pick this CLI when you want to file, review, or submit Expensify expenses and reports without leaving the terminal. It excels at one-liner expense filing from natural language, end-of-month report drafting from a date range, offline search across years of expenses, and orchestrating accounting-system exports. Agents can drive it through the standard --json output and typed exit codes, or through the built-in MCP bridge mode.

Unique Capabilities

These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.

Filing at thought speed

• expense quick — File an expense with one line: amount, merchant, and category parsed from a short prompt — no forms, no web UI.

  When a user tells an agent 'I just expensed dinner at Maya for $42.50,' the agent should file it in one call — not walk through six fields.

  expensify-pp-cli expense quick "Dinner at Maya $42.50" --agent
  

• report draft — Create a report and auto-attach every un-reported expense from a date range in a single command.

  End-of-month submission turns from 45 clicks into one command.

  expensify-pp-cli report draft --since 2026-04-01 --title "April expenses" --policy YOUR_POLICY_ID
  

• expense from-line — Paste a raw bank or card CSV row and the CLI extracts date/merchant/amount/currency and files the expense.

  Reconciling AmEx? Paste a row, file an expense. No copy-paste-copy-paste.

  expensify-pp-cli expense from-line "2026-04-18 DOORDASH*JOES $14.25" --category Meals
  

Local state that compounds

• damage — Single-glance summary: total expensed, pending, approved, paid for the current month (or a custom range).

  Agents asked 'how much did I expense this month' get one answer in one call.

  expensify-pp-cli damage --month current --json
  

• expense search — FTS5 search over all your expenses by merchant, comment, category, or tag. Regex-friendly.

  Agents asked 'did I expense that Starbucks last month' get an answer in one local query.

  expensify-pp-cli expense search "coffee" --since 2026-01-01 --json
  

• expense missing-receipts — Lists expenses without attached receipts so you can catch them before submitting a report.

  Submit-report-and-get-bounced feels bad; surface missing receipts upfront.

  expensify-pp-cli expense missing-receipts --json
  

• expense rollup — Pivot-table expenses by category, tag, or merchant for any time range.

  Build your own spending dashboard without burning API budget.

  expensify-pp-cli expense rollup --month 2026-04 --by category
  

• expense dupes — Finds expenses that look like duplicates by (merchant, amount, date±window).

  Accidental double-file is a top AP pain point; surface it before submission.

  expensify-pp-cli expense dupes --window 3d --json
  

Agent-native plumbing

• expense bulk — File a whole list of expenses in a single Expense_Create request.

  Reach for this when filing many expenses at once instead of looping create — it is one atomic request.

  expensify-pp-cli expense bulk --input rows.jsonl --dry-run
  

• report submit — Submit a report and optionally poll until it leaves SUBMITTED.

  Use --wait when a downstream step depends on the report actually being approved/rejected, not just submitted.

  expensify-pp-cli report submit --report-id 1587860702457827 --wait --timeout 1h
  

HTTP Transport

This CLI uses Chrome-compatible HTTP transport for browser-facing endpoints. It does not require a resident browser process for normal API calls.

Command Reference

admin — Integration Server: policy, employee, and rules admin

• expensify-pp-cli admin cards-list — List domain cards (Domain Cards Getter)
• expensify-pp-cli admin cards-owners — List card owners (Card Owner Data)
• expensify-pp-cli admin employee-add — Add an employee to a policy (Advanced Employee Updater)
• expensify-pp-cli admin employee-remove — Remove an employee from a policy
• expensify-pp-cli admin employee-update — Update an employee (Advanced Employee Updater)
• expensify-pp-cli admin policy-get — Get a policy's full config (Policy Getter)
• expensify-pp-cli admin policy-list — List all policies you admin (Policy List Getter)
• expensify-pp-cli admin policy-new — Create a new policy (Policy Creator)
• expensify-pp-cli admin policy-set-categories — Update categories for a policy from YAML
• expensify-pp-cli admin policy-set-fields — Update report fields for a policy
• expensify-pp-cli admin policy-set-tags — Update tags for a policy from YAML
• expensify-pp-cli admin report-set-status — Force a report status transition (Report Status Updater)
• expensify-pp-cli admin rules-new — Create an expense rule (Expense Rules Creator)
• expensify-pp-cli admin rules-update — Update an expense rule
• expensify-pp-cli admin tag-approvers-set — Set tag approvers (Tag Approvers Updater)

category — Workspace categories (for expense classification)

• expensify-pp-cli category — List categories for a workspace

expense — Create, list, and manage personal expenses

• expensify-pp-cli expense attach — Attach or replace a receipt on an expense
• expensify-pp-cli expense create — Create a new expense
• expensify-pp-cli expense delete — Delete an expense
• expensify-pp-cli expense edit — Edit an existing expense
• expensify-pp-cli expense get — Get expense detail by transaction ID
• expensify-pp-cli expense list — List your expenses with filters

export_resource — Integration Server: export reports to accounting systems (admin)

• expensify-pp-cli export-resource download — Download a previously generated export file
• expensify-pp-cli export-resource run — Export reports via Report Exporter (Integration Server)

me — Current user profile

• expensify-pp-cli me — Get current user profile

recon — Integration Server: corporate card reconciliation (admin)

• expensify-pp-cli recon — Export reconciliation data for a domain

report — Create, manage, and submit expense reports

• expensify-pp-cli report add — Add expenses to a report
• expensify-pp-cli report approve — Approve a report (manager action)
• expensify-pp-cli report comment — Add a comment to a report thread
• expensify-pp-cli report create — Create a new report
• expensify-pp-cli report delete — Delete a draft report
• expensify-pp-cli report get — Get report detail
• expensify-pp-cli report list — List your reports
• expensify-pp-cli report pay — Mark a report as reimbursed
• expensify-pp-cli report reopen — Reopen a submitted report back to draft
• expensify-pp-cli report submit — Submit a report for approval

tag — Workspace tags (multi-level, for expense classification)

• expensify-pp-cli tag — List tags for a workspace

workspace — View workspaces (policies) you have access to

• expensify-pp-cli workspace get — Get workspace detail
• expensify-pp-cli workspace list — List workspaces accessible to your account

Finding the right command

When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:

expensify-pp-cli which "<capability in your own words>"

which resolves a natural-language capability query to the best matching command from this CLI's curated feature index. Exit code 0 means at least one match; exit code 2 means no confident match — fall back to --help or use a narrower query.

Recipes

File a quick expense

expensify-pp-cli expense quick "Lunch at Joe's $18.50"

One line, one call, one expense. Category auto-suggested from your history.

Draft this month's report

expensify-pp-cli report draft --since 2026-04-01 --until 2026-04-30 --title "April" --policy 1234567

Creates a report and attaches every un-reported April expense in a single command.

Submit for approval and wait

expensify-pp-cli report submit --report-id 1587860702457827 --wait --timeout 1h

Blocks until approval arrives — drop this in CI after a closing script.

Find expenses with no receipt

expensify-pp-cli expense missing-receipts --json

Catches receipt gaps before they bounce your report.

Search your offline expense cache

expensify-pp-cli expense search "coffee" --json

FTS5 search over every synced expense — merchant, comment, category, tag — with no network call.

Auth Setup

Two ways to authenticate: (1) expensify auth login opens a browser, you log in, the CLI captures your session token — works immediately for all filing/submitting commands; (2) expensify auth set-keys stores your Integration Server partner credentials (get them at https://www.expensify.com/tools/integrations/) — required only for export/admin commands. Most users only need option 1.

Run expensify-pp-cli doctor to verify setup.

Agent Mode

Add --agent to any command. Expands to: --json --compact --no-input --no-color --yes.

• Pipeable — JSON on stdout, errors on stderr

• Filterable — --select keeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:

  expensify-pp-cli category --policy-id 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000 --agent --select id,name,status
  

• Previewable — --dry-run shows the request without sending

• Non-interactive — never prompts, every input is a flag

• Explicit retries — use --idempotent only when an already-existing create should count as success

Paths and state

Agents should treat the CLI's path resolver as part of the runtime contract:

• Use --home <dir> for one invocation, or set EXPENSIFY_HOME=<dir> to relocate all four path kinds under one root.

• Use per-kind env vars only when a specific kind must diverge: EXPENSIFY_CONFIG_DIR, EXPENSIFY_DATA_DIR, EXPENSIFY_STATE_DIR, EXPENSIFY_CACHE_DIR.

• Resolution order is per-kind env var, --home, EXPENSIFY_HOME, XDG (XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_DATA_HOME, XDG_STATE_HOME, XDG_CACHE_HOME), then platform defaults.

• config contains settings like config.toml and profiles. data contains credentials.toml, data.db, cookies, and auth sidecars. state contains persisted queries, jobs, and teach.log. cache contains regenerable HTTP/cache files.

• Stored secrets live in credentials.toml under the data dir. Existing legacy config.toml secrets are read for compatibility and leave config.toml on the first auth write.

• Run expensify-pp-cli doctor --fail-on warn to surface path and credential-location warnings. agent-context exposes a schema v4 paths block for agents that need the resolved dirs.

• For MCP, pass relocation through the MCP host config. The MCP binary does not inherit CLI flags:

  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "expensify": {
        "command": "expensify-pp-mcp",
        "env": {
          "EXPENSIFY_HOME": "/srv/expensify"
        }
      }
    }
  }
  

Fleet precedence: an inherited per-kind env var overrides an explicit --home for that kind. Use EXPENSIFY_HOME or per-kind vars as durable fleet levers, and use --home only for a single invocation. Relocation is not reversible by unsetting env vars; move files manually before clearing EXPENSIFY_HOME, or doctor will not find credentials left under the former root.

Agent Feedback

When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it:

expensify-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
expensify-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
expensify-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10

Entries are stored locally as feedback.jsonl under the resolved data dir. They are never POSTed unless EXPENSIFY_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or EXPENSIFY_FEEDBACK_AUTO_SEND=true. Default behavior is local-only.

Write what surprised you, not a bug report. Short, specific, one line: that is the part that compounds.

Output Delivery

Every command accepts --deliver <sink>. The output goes to the named sink in addition to (or instead of) stdout, so agents can route command results without hand-piping. Three sinks are supported:

Sink	Effect
stdout	Default; write to stdout only
file:<path>	Atomically write output to <path> (tmp + rename)
webhook:<url>	POST the output body to the URL (application/json or application/x-ndjson when --compact)

Unknown schemes are refused with a structured error naming the supported set. Webhook failures return non-zero and log the URL + HTTP status on stderr.

Named Profiles

A profile is a saved set of flag values, reused across invocations. Use it when a scheduled agent calls the same command every run with the same configuration - HeyGen's "Beacon" pattern.

expensify-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
expensify-pp-cli --profile briefing category --policy-id 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000
expensify-pp-cli profile list --json
expensify-pp-cli profile show briefing
expensify-pp-cli profile delete briefing --yes

Explicit flags always win over profile values; profile values win over defaults. agent-context lists all available profiles under available_profiles so introspecting agents discover them at runtime.

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success
2	Usage error (wrong arguments)
3	Resource not found
4	Authentication required
5	API error (upstream issue)
7	Rate limited (wait and retry)
10	Config error

Argument Parsing

Parse $ARGUMENTS:

1. Empty, help, or --help → show expensify-pp-cli --help output
2. Starts with install → ends with mcp → MCP installation; otherwise → see Prerequisites above
3. Anything else → Direct Use (execute as CLI command with --agent)

MCP Server Installation

1. Install the MCP server:

   go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/productivity/expensify/cmd/expensify-pp-mcp@latest
   

2. Register with Claude Code:

   claude mcp add expensify-pp-mcp -- expensify-pp-mcp
   

3. Verify: claude mcp list

Direct Use

1. Check if installed: which expensify-pp-cli If not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill).
2. Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above.
3. Execute with the --agent flag:

   expensify-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent
   

4. If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help: expensify-pp-cli <command> --help.