v0.6.3 Beta Rust · GPL-3.0

Scriptable GnuCash. Made for agents.

red-ale reads and edits GnuCash books without the GnuCash program. Drive it from the command line, from your own programs over JSON-RPC, or hand the ledger to AI agents over MCP. Anything it saves, GnuCash 5.17 opens with no warnings and no lost data.

Watch the walkthrough

100% GNUCASH COMPATIBLE

$ curl -fsSL https://github.com/CjS77/red-ale/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

red = Rust

ale = Assets = Liabilities + Equity

01 — What it does

GnuCash, without the windows.

Script your bookkeeping, build tools on top of your GnuCash books, or let AI agents do it for you. Talk to red-ale like you talk to your accountant.

AI READY

No.	Entry	Covers	Status
101	Accounts & transactions	Accounts, transactions, voids, reversals, transfers and reconciling	POSTED
102	Investments	Commodities, currencies, prices, lots, capital gains and stock splits	POSTED
103	Business	Customers, vendors, employees, jobs, invoices, bills, expense vouchers, orders, tax tables, billing terms and payments	POSTED
104	Check & Repair	The same checks and repairs as GnuCash's Check & Repair	POSTED
105	Safekeeping	GnuCash's backups, its `.log` journal and its lock, so two programs never write the same book	POSTED

Staffing the back office

Three clerks. One ledger. Zero windows.

The Clerk

red-ale exec

Runs one method or a whole script from the command line.

The Teller

red-ale serve

Open a book and handle JSON-RPC from curl, any program you write.

The Agent

red-ale mcp

Run the MCP Server in your favorite harness, whether it's Claude Code, Codex, or 7 others.

02 — Install

Installed with one line.

Linux or macOS

Option A — Installer script

RECOMMENDED

$ curl -fsSL https://github.com/CjS77/red-ale/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

Option B — From source

Needs Rust (rustup picks the toolchain), git and a C compiler such as gcc or clang. Installs to ~/.cargo/bin.

git clone https://github.com/CjS77/red-ale.git
cd red-ale
cargo install --path crates/red-ale

03 — Command-line Demo

A household book, from blank page to balanced.

Five steps from the walkthrough. Output is piped through jq to keep it short; jq is optional.

~/red-ale-demo — step 01

$ mkdir red-ale-demo && cd red-ale-demo
$ red-ale exec --create --book home.gnucash book.info

The full Manual, with guides, concepts and a reference for every method: start reading.

Takeaways

§1

Say what you want

Use the MCP Server and talk to your agent like you talk to your accountant.

§2

Detailed help

Not sure how to do something? Just ask. The full guide is embedded into the MCP server.

§3

Need a report?

Most of the GnuCash reports have been ported. But if you need something specific ask your agent to write it for you! And save it for next time.

§4

Open it in GnuCash

If you still want old-school control, just open the book in GnuCash. All your changes will be saved as usual..

The Fine print, a.k.a. why we can't have nice things

This software is in beta and has bugs: please submit an issue for defects, and feature requests may be considered. Red-ale is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the authors and copyright holders accept no liability for any claim, damages or other liability whatsoever, including any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary or consequential damages, and in particular no liability for any financial loss, howsoever arising from, out of or in connection with the software or its use or other dealings in it. You use red-ale at your own risk. Keep backups of your books, which red-ale writes to, and note that nothing here is financial, tax or accounting advice. Red-ale is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by the GnuCash project; red-ale serve and red-ale mcp listen on the local machine without authentication, so do not expose them to a network. This paragraph does not replace the licence: the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later, governs this software, and its own warranty disclaimer and limitation of liability apply in full.