osaurus-time

name	osaurus-time
description	Teaches the agent how to use the time tools — current time, timezone conversion, parsing dates, formatting, date arithmetic.
metadata	{"author":"Osaurus","version":"2.0.0"}

Time

A small, pure-function toolkit for clock and calendar work. No network, no state.

When to use

• Stamping outputs with the user's current time, in the user's timezone.
• Converting a timestamp to a different timezone for display.
• Parsing a date the user mentions in natural form ("2025-04-21", "Mon, 21 Apr 2025 14:00:00 GMT") to a comparable Unix timestamp.
• Adding or subtracting durations from a date ("3 days from now", "2 hours before that meeting").
• Computing the difference between two dates.

When NOT to use

• Sleeping/blocking the agent loop — these tools do not block.
• Recurring schedules — use the host app's automation/Schedules surface.
• Scheduling reminders — use osaurus.reminders.

Canonical workflow

1. Call current_time once at the start of any task that needs "now". Pass the user's timezone if you know it; otherwise omit and the system zone is used.
2. Use parse_date to turn user-supplied strings into a Unix timestamp before doing any math.
3. Use add_duration / diff_dates for arithmetic.
4. Use format_date only at the end, when you need a human-readable string.

Output envelope

Every tool returns:

{ "ok": true,  "data": { ... }, "warnings": ["..."] }
{ "ok": false, "error": { "code": "INVALID_ARGS", "message": "...", "hint": "..." } }

Always check ok before reading data. Bad timezone IDs and unparseable date strings produce structured errors — don't swallow them.

Tips

• IANA timezone IDs only (America/New_York, not EST). Call list_timezones if you need to validate one.
• relative format is locale-controlled; pass locale: "en_US" for stable English output.
• add_duration accepts ISO 8601 durations like P1DT2H (1 day, 2 hours) or signed seconds.