Amazon in Quicken

Inspiration

My research career was in "End-user programming". We had some limited success, but now Vibe Coding does it all, and far better than I ever imagined.
I wanted to try a task that was hard to do with our previous tools.
The real imitation to Vibe Coding is that most people don't yet know that it's even possible to create their own apps which solve their unique repetitive tasks.
This is where ChatGPT really shines. As the most well-known AI agent in the world, most people do already know about ChatGPT and use it regularly.
With the advent of the ChatGPT/Codex app for users’ home computers,
ChatGPT offers a simple one-step onboarding process for regular, non-programming users to create their own custom software.

What it does

It figures out what I bought on Amazon.
When I look at my charges in Quicken, all of the Amazon purchases only show the amount, and I have no idea what I purchased. The 'Amazon in Quicken' skill goes to my credit card page, finds the charge, opens it on Amazon, creates a short description of what I bought, and pastes it into the "Notes" area for that purchase in Quicken.

How we built it

It was completely built by Vibe Coding, using the ChatGPT/Codex app on a MacBook Air.
I made a video that showed ChatGPT how to handle the first Quicken entry. ChatGPT watched the video and then created a skill to handle all of the entries.

Challenges we ran into

ChatGPT had no problem figuring out what to do.
The biggest, continuing challenge is the current Guardrails for Agentic actions. It would continually stop and say "I'm not allowed to ..."

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Getting an Agent to do Agentic tasks! It opens apps and web pages, understands what everything on the page means, clicks on links, and copies and enters text.

What we learned

• Teaching the agent what to do by making a narrated video demo worked!
• I am just starting to learn how to deal with safety guardrails.

What's next for Amazon in Quicken

Short-term:
Create better summaries when multiple items were purchased.

Mid-term:
This success inspires me to try automating lots of my other repetitive activities.
I will work on

1. Maintaining my Wine List.
   
   • Given scans of receipts from Safeway, Nob Hill and K&L, find matching entries and update the current price.
     
   • Given a simple description like "Conundrum 3 stars", find the right entry and update my rating.
     
   • When I plan to go to a particular store, re-arrange the spreadsheet to show what I should buy there.
     
2. Checking my eBay monthly statement.
   When I get an email saying there is a new statement, I wish it would tell me the current charge, but it doesn't.
   So, I want an agent to:
   
   • Detect that email, log in to eBay, go to the Statements page, find the newest one, download it, and open it.
     
   • If the charge is the usual $4 for my NYTimes subscription, it's done.
     
   • Otherwise, send me a new email message alerting me to the current month's charge.
     

Long-term:
Create more Agentic routines that control all of the applications on my Mac, not just Browsers.
It really feels like the sky is the limit.

Built With

• chatgpt
• chrome
• computer-use
• macos
• mcp
• vibecoding
• video