Budget

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The budget tool provides 6 actions for tracking and managing project budgets directly through your AI assistant. Monitor spending against allocations, receive alerts when budgets approach thresholds, identify at-risk projects before they exceed limits, and generate financial forecasts — all without leaving your IDE or AI client.

Budget management in GitScrum connects financial data with delivery metrics. When combined with time tracking and analytics, the budget tool gives teams and managers a complete picture of project economics: how much was planned, how much is spent, and whether the project is on track financially.

Actions Overview

Getting Budget Details

The get action retrieves the current budget status for a specific project — total budget, amount spent, remaining balance, currency, and utilization percentage. This is the primary action for checking individual project financials.

Parameters

You:  "What's the budget status for the Alpha project?"
AI:   Calls budget action=get → returns total budget, spent, remaining, and utilization %

You:  "How much budget is left on the Backend project?"
AI:   Calls budget action=get → "Backend project: $45,000 of $120,000 spent.
       $75,000 remaining (37.5% utilized)"

You:  "Are we within budget on the Mobile App project?"
AI:   Calls budget action=get → AI compares spent vs. total and reports status

Updating Budgets

The update action modifies budget parameters for a project. You can update the total budget allocation, record spending, or change the currency. This allows managers to adjust budgets as project scope evolves.

Required Parameters

Optional Parameters

You:  "Set the Backend project budget to $150,000"
AI:   Calls budget action=update with total_budget=150000
      → "Budget updated: Backend project set to $150,000"

You:  "Update spending on the Mobile App project to $67,500"
AI:   Calls budget action=update with spent=67500
      → "Budget updated: Mobile App spending set to $67,500"

You:  "Change the Alpha project budget currency to EUR"
AI:   Calls budget action=update with currency="EUR"
      → "Budget updated: Alpha project currency set to EUR"

You:  "Increase the Backend project budget by $25,000"
AI:   Calls budget action=get → current total is $150,000
      → Calls budget action=update with total_budget=175000
      → "Budget updated: Backend project increased to $175,000"

Budget Summary

The summary action returns a consolidated budget overview across all projects in the workspace. This gives managers a single view of organizational spending — total allocated, total spent, total remaining, and per-project breakdowns.

Parameters

You:  "Show me the budget summary across all projects"
AI:   Calls budget action=summary → returns workspace-wide budget overview

You:  "How much have we spent across all projects?"
AI:   Calls budget action=summary → "Total spent: $234,500 of $500,000 allocated
       across 8 projects (46.9% utilized)"

You:  "Which project has the highest budget utilization?"
AI:   Calls budget action=summary → AI ranks projects by utilization percentage

Budget Alerts

The alerts action returns projects that are approaching or exceeding a spending threshold. By default, it flags projects at 80% utilization, but you can set a custom threshold to match your organization's risk tolerance.

Parameters

You:  "Are there any budget alerts?"
AI:   Calls budget action=alerts → returns projects above 80% threshold

You:  "Set budget alert threshold to 90% and show alerts"
AI:   Calls budget action=alerts with threshold=90
      → returns projects above 90% utilization

You:  "Which projects are getting close to their budget limits?"
AI:   Calls budget action=alerts with threshold=75
      → "3 projects above 75%: Mobile App (92%), Backend (81%), API v3 (78%)"

You:  "Warn me about any project over 50% budget utilization"
AI:   Calls budget action=alerts with threshold=50
      → returns all projects exceeding half their budget

At-Risk Projects

The at_risk action specifically identifies projects that have exceeded their budget allocation — spending is greater than the total budget. This is the critical alert action for financial oversight.

Parameters

You:  "Which projects are over budget?"
AI:   Calls budget action=at_risk → returns projects exceeding their allocation

You:  "Are any projects in financial trouble?"
AI:   Calls budget action=at_risk → "2 projects over budget:
       - Mobile App: $98,000 spent of $85,000 (115%)
       - Legacy Migration: $42,000 spent of $40,000 (105%)"

You:  "Show me projects that need immediate budget attention"
AI:   Calls budget action=at_risk → AI lists over-budget projects with overage amounts

Budget Forecast

The forecast action projects future spending based on current burn rate and project timeline. It estimates whether the project will stay within budget, when the budget will be exhausted, and the projected total spend at completion.

Parameters

You:  "Show budget forecast for the Backend project"
AI:   Calls budget action=forecast → returns projected spend, completion estimate,
       and budget exhaustion date

You:  "Will the Mobile App project stay within budget?"
AI:   Calls budget action=forecast → "At current burn rate of $12,000/week,
       the Mobile App project will exceed its $85,000 budget in approximately 2 weeks"

You:  "What's the projected total cost for the Alpha project?"
AI:   Calls budget action=forecast → returns estimated total spend at completion

Financial Oversight Workflow

The budget tool enables proactive financial management. Here's a typical workflow for managers and project leads:

1. Weekly budget review

Check the overall financial health across all projects.

You:  "Give me this week's budget overview"
AI:   Calls budget action=summary → workspace-wide financial snapshot
      Calls budget action=alerts → projects approaching limits
      Calls budget action=at_risk → projects already over budget
      → Consolidated financial status report

2. Investigate flagged projects

Dig deeper into projects that triggered alerts.

You:  "Why is the Mobile App project over budget?"
AI:   Calls budget action=get → detailed budget breakdown
      Calls budget action=forecast → projected trajectory
      → "Mobile App is at 115% utilization. At current burn rate,
         the project needs an additional $15,000 to complete"

3. Adjust budgets as needed

Update allocations based on findings.

You:  "Increase the Mobile App budget to $100,000"
AI:   Calls budget action=update with total_budget=100000
      → "Budget updated. Mobile App now at 98% utilization of $100,000"

4. Set monitoring thresholds

Establish alert thresholds for early warning.

You:  "Alert me when any project exceeds 70% budget"
AI:   Calls budget action=alerts with threshold=70
      → "5 projects above 70%: [list with utilization percentages]"

Proactive Budget Management

Combine budget data with other MCP tools for comprehensive project economics:

• Budget + Time Tracking. Compare time-based costs with budget utilization. Use time action=reports with hourly rates alongside budget action=get to verify that tracked billable hours align with spending records.

• Budget + Analytics. Correlate velocity trends with burn rate. If velocity is declining while spending stays constant, cost-per-point is increasing — an early indicator of budget risk.

• Budget + Sprints. Divide total budget by remaining sprints to calculate per-sprint budget allowance. Compare against actual sprint costs derived from time tracking data.

• Budget + Activity. Monitor budget-related activity events to track who authorized spending changes and when budgets were last adjusted.

You:  "Compare our burn rate against velocity for the Backend project"
AI:   Calls budget action=get → spending data
      Calls analytics action=get report="velocity" → delivery rate
      → "Backend is spending $15,000/sprint while delivering 32 points.
         Cost per point: $469. Last sprint was $521/point — 11% increase"

Currency Support

Budget amounts support multiple currencies. Set the currency per project using the update action with the currency parameter. All budget reports respect the project's configured currency and display amounts accordingly.

Supported currency formats follow ISO 4217 codes: USD, EUR, GBP, BRL, CAD, AUD, JPY, and others supported by the GitScrum platform.

Next Steps

• Analytics: Access project health and performance reports alongside financial data.
• Activity: Monitor changes including budget-related events.
• Standup: Review daily team progress alongside budget utilization.
• Time Tracking: Track billable hours that drive budget consumption.