Pattern-based rules any agent can create for you

You're chatting with your AI about your spending. You scroll through some transactions and notice a pattern — you hit the same three coffee shops every week. So you say: "I want to tag all my coffee shop visits as 'daily habits'."

Your agent says: "Done — I've created a rule for that. Want me to apply it to your existing transactions too?"

That's it. No forms. No settings pages. No learning a rules UI. You described what you wanted, and it happened.

Rules through conversation, not configuration

Every budgeting app has a rules system buried somewhere in its settings. You navigate through menus, fill out forms, pick from dropdowns, configure conditions. It works, technically. But nobody would call it enjoyable.

Era Context takes a different approach. Your rules engine is a conversation.

"Tag all transactions from Uber and Lyft as 'transportation'." Done.

"Categorize anything from Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, or Sprouts as groceries." Done.

"Flag any transaction over $200 that I haven't tagged yet." Done.

You talk to your AI the way you'd talk to a person who manages your books. Describe the pattern. Describe what should happen. Your agent creates the rule and waits for your approval.

Nothing activates until you say so

This is the part that matters most. Your AI agent creates rules based on your instructions, but nothing activates until you explicitly approve it.

When your agent creates a rule, you see exactly what it will do. Which transactions it will match. What action it will take. The rule sits in a pending state until you say "yes, activate that" or "actually, let's adjust it."

This approval step isn't a speed bump — it's the point. You're delegating the tedious work of setting up rules to your AI while keeping full control over what actually runs against your financial data. The agent does the configuration work. You make the decisions.

What rules can do

Rules in Era Context cover the repetitive housekeeping that makes financial data actually useful.

Auto-categorize transactions. "Put all my subscription services into a 'subscriptions' category." Your agent identifies the pattern, creates the rule, and every matching transaction gets categorized automatically — past and future.

Tag spending patterns. "Tag everything at restaurants during the weekend as 'social spending'." Tags give you a flexible layer on top of categories. Use them however you want — by mood, by purpose, by project, by person.

Clean up merchant names. Those cryptic transaction descriptions from your bank — "SQ *JOES COFFEE #1247" — can be cleaned up automatically. "Whenever you see a transaction from SQ *JOES COFFEE, rename the merchant to Joe's Coffee." Readable statements, zero effort.

Detect recurring charges. "Show me any new recurring charge that appears for the first time." Stop subscription creep before it starts. Your rules can flag new recurring patterns so you're always aware of what's billing you.

Flag anomalies. "Alert me if my spending in any category jumps more than 50% compared to last month." Let your rules watch for unusual patterns while you focus on everything else.

The pre-built library

Not everyone wants to start from scratch. Era Context includes a library of pre-built rules you can browse and activate with a single conversation.

Ask your agent: "Show me what rules are available." You'll see templates for common patterns — subscription detection, merchant cleanup, category organization, spending alerts. Pick the ones that make sense for your situation, customize them if you want, and activate them.

The library is a starting point, not a constraint. Every pre-built rule can be modified, and you can always create completely custom rules by describing what you want.

Every rule remembers your words

Here's a detail that sounds small but matters more than you'd expect: every rule stores the exact words you used to create it.

Six months from now, you might look at a rule and wonder why it exists. Instead of trying to reverse-engineer the logic from technical conditions, you'll see your original request: "I created this because I wanted to track how much I spend on my dog."

This is an audit trail that actually makes sense. Not timestamps and technical logs, but your own words explaining your own intent. When your AI helps you review your rules later, it can reference why you created each one, not just what each one does.

Any agent can create rules

Because Era Context works with any MCP-compatible client, you can create rules from whichever AI you're using. Start a rule in Claude. Modify it in ChatGPT. Review it in Gemini. Your rules live in Era Context, not in any single agent.

This also means you get the benefit of each AI's conversational strengths. If one agent is better at understanding nuanced descriptions, use that one for complex rules. If another is faster for quick changes, use that for maintenance. Your rules don't care which agent created them.

The shift from managing to describing

The bigger picture here is about how you interact with your financial tools. Traditional apps ask you to learn their interface — their forms, their menus, their vocabulary. Era Context asks you to use your own words.

"I want to separate business meals from personal dining" is a complete instruction. Your agent figures out which merchants qualify, creates the rule, and waits for your go-ahead. You described an outcome. Your agent handled the implementation.

This is what financial automation should feel like. Not clicking through configuration screens. Not learning a rules syntax. Just saying what you want and approving the result.

Getting started with rules

Rules are available on Era Context's Organize tier and above. Connect your accounts, start talking to your AI, and describe what you want organized. Your agent handles the rest — you just approve.

Start simple. "Tag all my grocery stores." See how it feels. Then get specific. "Flag any subscription I'm paying for that I haven't used in 30 days." Then get creative. The only limit is what you can describe.

Your financial data should work the way you think about it, not the way a database structures it. Rules are how you bridge that gap — one conversation at a time.