How to Connect Walnut to Claude, Step by Step
Last updated August 2026
Short answer
Add the Walnut MCP connector as a custom connector in Claude, sign in with your Walnut account, and approve access. The server URL is https://walnutinvest.com/api/connector/mcp. It takes about two minutes, there is nothing to download and no API key, and it works in Claude Desktop, claude.ai and Claude Code. Access is read-only for your holdings, your broker login never leaves your broker, and Claude cannot place orders through it. Walnut is informational and is not an investment adviser.
Claude is good at reasoning about investing and has no idea what you own, so every answer it gives about “your portfolio” is really about the example you typed. Connecting Walnut closes that gap: the same questions get answered against your actual positions at current prices, which changes them from “is NVDA a good stock” to “what has NVDA done for me, and how much of my portfolio is it now”.
Step 1. Add the connector
In Claude Desktop or claude.ai, open Settings, then Connectors, and choose Add custom connector. Give it the name Walnut and paste the server URL:
https://walnutinvest.com/api/connector/mcp
In Claude Code, add it from the terminal instead:
claude mcp add walnut --transport http https://walnutinvest.com/api/connector/mcp
Then run /mcp and authenticate.
Step 2. Sign in and approve
Claude will open a sign-in for your Walnut account. Approve the access request and the connector is live. You are authenticating to Walnut, not to your broker: at no point does Claude ask for a brokerage username or password, and it should never be given one.
If you have not connected a broker to Walnut yet, do that first in the app. The connector can only show Claude what Walnut can see.
Step 3. Check it worked
Ask Claude something only a connected assistant could answer, such as “what are my largest holdings and what are they worth right now?” If it returns your actual positions with current values, it is connected. If it answers in generalities or asks you to paste your holdings, the connector is not enabled for that conversation.
What Claude can see once connected
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Your positions | Every holding in the brokerage account you connect, with share counts and current value |
| Live prices | Current prices for what you own, fetched rather than remembered |
| Performance | How each holding and the whole portfolio has moved, measured against the S&P 500 |
| Drift | How far each position has moved from the target weight you set |
| Rebalance math | The trades that would bring a portfolio back to target, as a description you review |
| Your portfolios | The thematic portfolios you have built in Walnut, and their stated reasoning |
| Order history | Orders placed through Walnut, including any still awaiting the broker |
| Connected brokers | Which accounts are linked and whether each is read-only or trade-enabled |
It does not see your broker username or password, because you never provide them, and it cannot move money or place an order.
What to ask once it is connected
Your portfolio
- “How is my portfolio doing against the S&P 500 this year?”
- “Which of my holdings are dragging my return, and by how much?”
- “Am I too concentrated in tech? Show me the weights.”
A single holding
- “I own NVDA. What has it actually done for me since I bought it?”
- “What does this company do, and why might it have moved this week?”
Research and ideas
- “Build me a focused portfolio around grid infrastructure and explain each pick.”
- “What would I be buying if I put $500 into this idea?”
Rebalancing
- “How far has each position drifted from its target weight?”
- “What trades would bring this back to target?”
Get a recommendation for your situation
Walnut is the AI that knows your portfolio: ask anything in plain English, research any fund, and get an honest second opinion. On the broker you already use, read-only, and you approve every trade. Walnut is not a registered investment adviser.
Why Walnut, and not a raw MCP server
There are three ways to give Claude your portfolio and they are not close on effort:
| Route | What you maintain | Access | Broker coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walnut connector | None. Add a URL and sign in | Read-only for holdings | Most major US brokers |
| A self-hosted MCP server | You run and maintain a server, and hold API keys | Whatever you build | Whichever broker you wrote it for |
| Pasting your holdings into chat | None, but you retype it every time | Only what you typed, and it goes stale immediately | Any, badly |
Building your own server is the right choice if you want a specific integration nobody offers, and you should expect to hold broker API keys and keep a service running. Pasting holdings into chat is free and quietly unreliable: it is stale the moment prices move, wrong whenever you forget a position, and Claude may fill the gaps with prices from training data, stated with complete confidence.
The honest case for the hosted connector is not that it is more powerful. It is that it is a URL and a sign-in, it stays current, and read-only is the default rather than something you configure. If you would rather build it, that trade-off is covered here.
Read-only, and how to revoke it
The connector reads holdings. It does not place orders, and there is no setting that makes it place orders. Trading through Walnut happens in Walnut's own assistant on the web, where every order is previewed, stated plainly as spending real money, and confirmed by you before anything is placed.
To revoke, remove the connector in Claude's settings, which stops that client immediately. To cut access at the source instead, disconnect the broker inside Walnut, which revokes the underlying data access no matter which assistant is asking. See is it safe to connect your brokerage to an AI.
If it does not work
Claude answers in generalities. The connector is added but not enabled for that conversation. Most clients require the connector to be switched on per chat rather than globally, so check the connector toggle in the current conversation before assuming the setup failed.
It returns nothing, or an empty portfolio. Walnut can only show what it can see, so this almost always means no broker is connected in Walnut yet, or the connection has expired and needs reauthorising. Open Walnut and check the broker connection first; the connector will then reflect it.
Sign-in loops or fails. Confirm you are signing in to the Walnut account that actually holds the broker connection. Having created a second account by accident is a more common cause than anything technical.
Holdings look stale. Positions sync from your broker rather than streaming continuously, and a recent trade may not have arrived. Prices are fetched live; the holdings list is as current as the last sync.
What this does not do
It does not give advice. Claude with the connector attached can tell you what you hold, how it has performed against the market, and where you are concentrated, and it is not an investment adviser and neither are we. A description of your portfolio and a recommendation about it are different things, and only the first is on offer here.
It does not see anything outside the accounts you connect. A spouse's portfolio, a pension, property or a business are invisible to it, which matters because the combined picture is where most real concentration problems live.
And it does not know your tax situation, so anything it says about selling is arithmetic rather than planning. That distinction is worked through in what free portfolio analysis can and cannot do.
Other assistants, and the wider picture
The same connector URL works with any client that supports remote MCP servers. For the setup in a different assistant, see ChatGPT. For the neutral survey of every route, including the ones that are not Walnut, see how to connect a brokerage to Claude, which compares the approaches rather than walking through ours, and the full connect hub.
FAQ
Claude is connected but answers in generalities. Why?
The connector is added but not enabled for that conversation. Most clients require it to be switched on per chat rather than globally, so check the connector toggle in the current conversation. If it is on and the portfolio comes back empty, the more likely cause is that no broker is connected in Walnut yet.
Why do my holdings look out of date?
Positions sync from your broker rather than streaming continuously, so a very recent trade may not have arrived yet. Prices are fetched live each time you ask; the holdings list is as current as the last sync with your broker.
Does the connector give investment advice?
No. It describes what you hold, how it has performed against the market and where you are concentrated. Describing a portfolio and recommending what to do with it are different things, and Walnut is not an investment adviser. It also cannot see accounts you have not connected, which is where most real concentration problems live.
How do I connect Walnut to Claude?
Add the Walnut MCP server as a custom connector in Claude, then sign in with your Walnut account and approve access. The server URL is https://walnutinvest.com/api/connector/mcp. In Claude Desktop or claude.ai, open Settings, then Connectors, and choose Add custom connector. In Claude Code, run the CLI command and authenticate. Setup takes about two minutes and there is nothing to download.
What is the Walnut MCP server URL?
https://walnutinvest.com/api/connector/mcp. Enter it as a custom connector, sign in with your Walnut account, and approve access. There is no API key to generate and no configuration file to edit.
Does Claude see my broker password?
No, and it never could. Your broker login stays with your broker: Walnut connects through a secure connection and never sees or stores those credentials, and Claude authenticates to Walnut with your Walnut account rather than to your broker. Nothing in the chain gives an AI assistant your brokerage password.
Can Claude place trades through the connector?
No. The connector is read-only for your holdings. It can analyze, compare and draft a portfolio for you to review, and it will not place an order. Trading through Walnut happens in Walnut's own assistant on the web, with an explicit preview and confirmation for every order.
Which Claude products does this work with?
Claude Desktop, claude.ai in the browser, and Claude Code from the terminal. Any client that supports remote MCP servers can use the same URL, which includes several tools beyond Claude.
What can Claude actually see once connected?
Positions and share counts, live prices, how each holding and the whole portfolio has moved against the S&P 500, drift from your targets, the portfolios you have built in Walnut, and your Walnut order history. It never sees a broker username or password, because none is ever handed to it.
Is it free?
Yes. The connector is free to use and needs a Walnut account, which is also free. There is no percentage-of-assets fee, because Walnut never takes custody of your money.
How do I revoke access?
Remove the connector in Claude's settings, which stops that client immediately. To cut it off at the source instead, disconnect the broker in Walnut, which revokes the underlying data access regardless of which assistant is asking.
Why not just paste my holdings into Claude?
You can, and it is worse in three specific ways: it is stale the moment prices move, it is wrong whenever you forget a position, and Claude may fill gaps with prices from training data stated confidently. A connector fetches current holdings and current prices each time you ask.
Do I need to build my own MCP server?
No, and for most people it is the wrong trade. A self-hosted server means running and maintaining infrastructure and holding broker API keys yourself, in exchange for control you probably do not need. The hosted connector is a URL and a sign-in.
Which brokers can I connect?
Most major US brokerages connect for reading holdings, which is all the analysis needs. Walnut checks your specific connection and tells you what it supports rather than publishing a list that goes stale, because the supported set changes as brokers add and remove access.
Related articles
Walnut is informational and is not an investment adviser, and nothing here is investment advice. Broker support, connector behaviour and third-party client settings change; the connector URL above is current, and the steps in Claude may differ slightly as its settings evolve.