Time MCP — Use Cases, Install & Live Demo

Why use it

Key features

IANA timezone names (America/Los_Angeles, Europe/Berlin) — handles DST correctly
Always returns the actual current time — Claude alone doesn't know
Two tools, zero ceremony
No API key, no network calls beyond the host's clock

Live Demo

What it looks like in practice

time.replay ▶ ready

0/0

Install

Pick your client

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json · Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "time": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-server-time"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Open Claude Desktop → Settings → Developer → Edit Config. Restart after saving.

~/.cursor/mcp.json · .cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "time": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-server-time"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Cursor uses the same mcpServers schema as Claude Desktop. Project config wins over global.

VS Code → Cline → MCP Servers → Edit

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "time": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-server-time"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Click the MCP Servers icon in the Cline sidebar, then "Edit Configuration".

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "time": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-server-time"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Same shape as Claude Desktop. Restart Windsurf to pick up changes.

~/.continue/config.json

{
  "mcpServers": [
    {
      "name": "time",
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-server-time"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Continue uses an array of server objects rather than a map.

~/.config/zed/settings.json

{
  "context_servers": {
    "time": {
      "command": {
        "path": "uvx",
        "args": [
          "mcp-server-time"
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Add to context_servers. Zed hot-reloads on save.

claude mcp add time -- uvx mcp-server-time

One-liner. Verify with claude mcp list. Remove with claude mcp remove.

Use Cases

Real-world ways to use Time

Find a meeting time that works across 4 timezones

👤 Anyone scheduling with a distributed team ⏱ ~3 min beginner

When to use: You need a 30-min slot that isn't 6am for someone or 10pm for someone else.

Flow

Ground Claude in the real current time

What's the current time in America/Los_Angeles, America/New_York, Europe/London, and Asia/Tokyo?✓ Copied

→ Four correct clock times, not stale guesses
Convert candidate slots

Convert 10:00 America/Los_Angeles on the next Tuesday to the other 3 zones. Flag if it falls outside 8am-7pm local for anyone.✓ Copied

→ 4-row table with out-of-hours flag
Propose 2 humane slots

Suggest 2 weekly recurring slots that keep everyone inside 8am-6pm local. No slots that require someone to work a weekend.✓ Copied

→ Two viable options with trade-offs

Outcome: A humane meeting time with the conversion math shown, ready to send as a calendar invite.

Pitfalls

DST transitions flip the offset mid-flight — Always use IANA zone names (America/Los_Angeles), never offsets like 'UTC-8' which go stale on DST change
Half-hour offset zones (India, Nepal, parts of Australia) — Trust the tool — it handles these; don't let Claude round to hours

Debug a timestamp bug by converting log times to your local zone

👤 Engineers reading UTC logs while troubleshooting ⏱ ~5 min beginner

When to use: Your logs are in UTC, your brain is in Pacific, and the incident correlation keeps going wrong.

Flow

Translate the incident window

Convert 2026-04-14T22:37:00Z to America/Los_Angeles. Also give me the same moment in Europe/Amsterdam where our ops on-call was.✓ Copied

→ Two local times side-by-side
Confirm DST state

Was DST in effect in America/Los_Angeles at that instant? What was the UTC offset?✓ Copied

→ Offset printed (e.g., -07:00), DST confirmed
Correlate with human events

Given the incident was 15:37 PT, does that line up with the Slack thread from 'Monday afternoon'?✓ Copied

→ Sanity check against human-named times

Outcome: You stop blaming the wrong deploy because you finally have the times right.

Pitfalls

Mixing 'Z', '+00:00', and naive timestamps — Always convert to explicit UTC first; reject any timestamp without a zone in the prompt

Combine with: sentry · postgres

Combinations

Pair with other MCPs for X10 leverage

time + sentry

Translate incident start/end times into local zones for postmortem narration

For Sentry incident INC-42, convert the start and end timestamps into America/Los_Angeles and Europe/Berlin and write the postmortem timeline.✓ Copied

time + postgres

Query with correct local-day boundaries when your DB stores UTC

How many signups happened on 2026-04-13 in America/Los_Angeles local time? Use the time tool to compute the UTC range, then query events.✓ Copied

Tools

What this MCP exposes

Tool	Inputs	When to call	Cost
get_current_time	timezone: str (IANA name, e.g. 'Europe/Berlin')	Ground the model in real wall-clock time before any date reasoning	free
convert_time	source_timezone: str, time: str (HH:MM), target_timezone: str	Convert a specific clock time between two zones	free

Cost & Limits

What this costs to run

API quota: None — pure local computation
Tokens per call: Tiny — a few hundred tokens per call
Monetary: Free
Tip: No budget concerns. Call it freely whenever dates are involved.

Security

Permissions, secrets, blast radius

Credential storage: None

Data egress: None — reads the host system clock and tzdata

Accuracy depends on the host OS's tzdata being up to date — rare but real when legislations change DST rules mid-year.

Troubleshooting

Common errors and fixes

Unknown timezone: 'PST'

Use IANA names, not abbreviations. 'PST' → 'America/Los_Angeles'. 'EST' → 'America/New_York'. Abbreviations are ambiguous (IST = India or Ireland?).

Returned time seems an hour off

DST transition edge case. Verify with the is_dst field — if it's wrong, your host's tzdata is stale. Update system timezone database.

Verify: zdump -v America/Los_Angeles | head

convert_time returns 'ambiguous time' during DST fall-back

The clock hour happens twice (1:30am runs twice). Specify a date-time, not just a time, for unambiguous conversion.

Alternatives

Time vs others

Alternative	When to use it instead	Tradeoff
A dedicated calendar MCP (Google Calendar)	You want to actually book the meeting, not just compute times	Heavier, needs OAuth — but closes the loop to an invite

More

Resources

📖 Read the official README on GitHub

🐙 Browse open issues

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