Hidden category attribute

[GraysonCAdams]

It would be nice to know if the category is hidden, and therefore irrelevant, especially when trying to do a sum total of the categories being tracked in Home Assistant. I don't have a way right now through the sensors of knowing if the category is no longer part of the picture.

[DeLuca21]

Hey Grayson, really solid point.

Right now the integration doesn’t show whether a category is hidden, which makes it tricky when you're trying to build accurate totals or filter out unused stuff in dashboards.

The simplest change would be to add a hidden: true attribute to each category sensor. That info comes straight from the YNAB API (category["hidden"]), so it’s easy to pass it into the sensor’s extra_state_attributes.

I'm also looking at adding an option in the config flow, just a checkbox during setup (or later via "Configure") that would exclude hidden categories entirely. Behind the scenes, it would just skip those when the coordinator processes categories and avoids creating sensors for them.

And if someone keeps the hidden ones in, the plan would be to append "(Hidden)" to the sensor’s friendly name. That’d just be a quick check during sensor creation, something like:

if category["hidden"]:
    name += " (Hidden)"

Currently I'm not sure on how exclusion would work if someone later hides or unhides a category, the sensor would need to be either deleted or added in on a reload of the integration, as I wouldn't want to have to re-add the integration altogether whenever there is a sensor change.

Let me know what you think, would hidden: true attribute be enough or should I add an option to exclude the sensors during setup?

[DeLuca21]

Hidden attribute feature added in v1.3.1

[GraysonCAdams]

Nice work! I ended up sort of hacking this into the prior version on my end, as well as a calculated Monthly Target amount per category. The math is probably not perfect, but it's helpful. If you're interested I can share more details unless that is pretty niche.

[DeLuca21]

Hey @GraysonCAdams , thanks!

Just to clarify, when you mention a "calculated Monthly Target per category", do you mean something beyond YNAB's built-in goal system?

The integration already includes goal-related attributes in categories like:

• goal_type: e.g. NEED, MF, or TB depending on the goal type
• goal_target: e.g. 945 for a savings or spending target
• goal_percentage_complete: e.g. 74 meaning 74% of the goal is funded
• goal_overall_left: e.g. 245 left to fully fund the goal
• percentage_spent: e.g. 62.5 representing how much of the monthly budget has been spent
• needs_attention and attention_reason: e.g. true and Underfunded to flag categories falling behind

These attributes already make it easy to show your YNAB goals in Home Assistant, like adding progress bars for savings targets, flagging underfunded categories, or triggering automations when something needs attention.

If your Monthly Target is something separate, like your own calculation based on dividing a total over time or using past spending, that sounds cool.
It’s not part of the YNAB API, so it’s not something the integration handles by default, but it could be worth looking into if it’s useful and makes sense to include.

Would definitely be keen to see how you’ve set it up. Even if it’s a bit custom, it might be something that could work as an optional feature later on.