Datetime FAQs

Question 1

Does Datetime support timezones?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Datetime fully supports IANA timezone strings (e.g., 'America/New_York') for both retrieving the current time and for human-readable output when parsing. You can also configure a default timezone using the `MCP_TZ` environment variable.

Question 2

What is the Datetime tool?

Accepted Answer

Datetime is a lightweight Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides essential date and time utilities. It communicates with client applications via stdio transport, making it easy to integrate into various development workflows.

Question 3

How do I install and use Datetime?

Accepted Answer

You can install Datetime globally via npm (`npm install -g datetime-mcp`) or use it directly with npx (`npx datetime-mcp`). Once running, it exposes its utilities as an MCP server, typically configured within an MCP client like Claude Code or Claude Desktop.

Question 4

What core functionalities does Datetime offer?

Accepted Answer

Datetime offers three main tools: `datetime.now` to get the current date/time from the host OS, `datetime.parse` to convert diverse date/time strings into canonical forms, and `datetime.health` to retrieve server health metrics like uptime and monotonic time.

Question 5

Can Datetime parse different date/time string formats?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Datetime's `datetime.parse` tool is designed to parse a wide variety of date/time strings, leveraging JavaScript's `Date` constructor for robust parsing, and then outputting the result in canonical forms including UTC ISO, epoch milliseconds, and human-readable formats with optional timezone.

Datetime

Datetime

About

Key Features

Use Cases

About

Key Features

Use Cases