Time MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol server that provides time and timezone conversion capabilities. This server enables LLMs to get current time information and perform timezone conversions using IANA timezone names, with automatic system timezone detection.

Source: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers/tree/main/src/time

Requires MCP Python SDK 2.x (mcp>=2.3,<3).

Available Tools

• get_current_time - Get current time in a specific timezone or system timezone.

  • Optional arguments:
    • timezone (string): IANA timezone name (e.g., 'America/New_York', 'Europe/London'). Defaults to the server's local timezone.

• convert_time - Convert time between timezones.

  • Required arguments:
    • time (string): Time in 24-hour format (HH:MM)
  • Optional arguments:
    • source_timezone (string): Source IANA timezone name. Defaults to the server's local timezone.
    • target_timezone (string): Target IANA timezone name. Defaults to the server's local timezone.

• get_time_ago - Get the time a given number of days, hours, minutes and seconds ago in a specific timezone, for questions such as "what happened in the last 5 hours?".

  • Optional arguments:
    • timezone (string): IANA timezone name; defaults to the server's local timezone
    • days_ago, hours_ago, minutes_ago, seconds_ago (non-negative JSON integers, default 0; a fraction, numeric string or boolean is rejected): how far back to go. They add up, so two and a half hours ago is hours_ago: 2, minutes_ago: 30.
  • The offset is elapsed time, counted back from the current instant, so across a daylight-saving change "a day ago" is exactly 24 hours ago and its wall-clock reading can differ from now by an hour. An offset reaching before year 1 is an error.

A timezone name, here and in --local-timezone, must be an exact IANA key, case included: Europe/Warsaw is accepted and europe/warsaw is rejected on every platform, including macOS, whose case-insensitive filesystem would otherwise resolve it.

Protocol versions

The server speaks both eras of the Model Context Protocol over stdio, with nothing to configure: a 2026-07-28 client (discovered with server/discover, no session) and a 2025-11-25 client (the initialize handshake). The client's first request decides which. Tools behave the same in both. Methods the 2026-07-28 specification removes, such as ping, are answered only on a 2025-11-25 connection.

Results and errors

The server is built on the SDK's high-level MCPServer. Each tool declares an outputSchema and returns its result twice: as structuredContent, and as the same object in indented JSON in a text block, for a client that does not read structured output.

• A tool failure is an isError result whose text the model can read and act on, prefixed Error executing tool <name>: . That covers an unknown or non-exact timezone (Invalid timezone: ...), an empty timezone (Missing required argument: <argument>), a time not in HH:MM 24-hour form, a wall-clock time skipped by a clock change, and an argument missing or of the wrong type (the SDK's validation message).
• An ambiguous time is reported, not guessed. On the day a clock change repeats a wall-clock time (a DST fall-back, such as 01:30 on 2024-11-03 in America/New_York), convert_time returns its first occurrence in source and target, and the second in later_occurrence: a note saying the time occurs twice, with that occurrence's own source, target and time_difference. For any other time later_occurrence is null.
• An unknown tool name is a JSON-RPC -32602 error (Unknown tool: <name>), not an isError result, as both protocol versions specify.
• The server registers no prompts or resources. Their list methods answer with empty lists.

Installation

Using uv (recommended)

When using uv no specific installation is needed. We will use uvx to directly run mcp-server-time.

uvx mcp-server-time

Using PIP

Alternatively you can install mcp-server-time via pip:

pip install mcp-server-time

After installation, you can run it as a script using:

python -m mcp_server_time

Configuration

Configure for Claude.app

Add to your Claude settings:

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

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "time": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "-e", "LOCAL_TIMEZONE", "mcp/time"]
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "time": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "mcp_server_time"]
    }
  }
}

Configure for Zed

Add to your Zed settings.json:

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

"context_servers": {
  "mcp-server-time": {
    "command": "python",
    "args": ["-m", "mcp_server_time"]
  }
},

Configure for VS Code

For quick installation, use one of the one-click install buttons below...

For manual installation, add the following JSON block to your User Settings (JSON) file in VS Code. You can do this by pressing Ctrl + Shift + P and typing Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON).

Optionally, you can add it to a file called .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace. This will allow you to share the configuration with others.

Note that the mcp key is needed when using the mcp.json file.

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

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "time": {
        "command": "docker",
        "args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "mcp/time"]
      }
    }
  }
}

Configure for Zencoder

1. Go to the Zencoder menu (...)
2. From the dropdown menu, select Agent Tools
3. Click on the Add Custom MCP
4. Add the name and server configuration from below, and make sure to hit the Install button

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

Customization - System Timezone

By default, the server automatically detects your system's timezone. You can override this by adding the argument --local-timezone to the args list in the configuration. This local timezone is also what a tool uses for a timezone argument the call omits, and each tool's input schema names it as that argument's default. An explicitly empty timezone is still an error.

Example:

{
  "command": "python",
  "args": ["-m", "mcp_server_time", "--local-timezone=America/New_York"]
}

The Docker image cannot see the host's timezone, so it reads the LOCAL_TIMEZONE environment variable when the container starts, and uses UTC when it is unset or empty. Pass it with -e: "-e", "LOCAL_TIMEZONE" forwards the client's own value, as in the Docker configuration above, and "-e", "LOCAL_TIMEZONE=America/New_York" sets one. A --local-timezone given after the image name takes precedence.

Example Interactions

1. Get current time:

{
  "name": "get_current_time",
  "arguments": {
    "timezone": "Europe/Warsaw"
  }
}

Response (structuredContent, and the same JSON as text):

{
  "timezone": "Europe/Warsaw",
  "datetime": "2024-01-01T13:00:00+01:00",
  "day_of_week": "Monday",
  "is_dst": false
}

2. Convert time between timezones:

{
  "name": "convert_time",
  "arguments": {
    "source_timezone": "America/New_York",
    "time": "16:30",
    "target_timezone": "Asia/Tokyo"
  }
}

Response (structuredContent, and the same JSON as text):

{
  "source": {
    "timezone": "America/New_York",
    "datetime": "2024-01-01T16:30:00-05:00",
    "day_of_week": "Monday",
    "is_dst": false
  },
  "target": {
    "timezone": "Asia/Tokyo",
    "datetime": "2024-01-02T06:30:00+09:00",
    "day_of_week": "Tuesday",
    "is_dst": false
  },
  "time_difference": "+14.0h",
  "later_occurrence": null
}

3. Get a past time:

{
  "name": "get_time_ago",
  "arguments": {
    "timezone": "Europe/Warsaw",
    "hours_ago": 2,
    "minutes_ago": 30
  }
}

Response (structuredContent, and the same JSON as text):

{
  "timezone": "Europe/Warsaw",
  "datetime": "2024-01-01T10:30:00+01:00",
  "day_of_week": "Monday",
  "is_dst": false
}

Debugging

You can use the MCP inspector to debug the server. For uvx installations:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uvx mcp-server-time

Or if you've installed the package in a specific directory or are developing on it:

cd path/to/servers/src/time
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv run mcp-server-time

Examples of Questions for Claude

1. "What time is it now?" (the timezone can be omitted: the server uses its local timezone)
2. "What time is it in Tokyo?"
3. "When it's 4 PM in New York, what time is it in London?"
4. "Convert 9:30 AM Tokyo time to New York time"
5. "What time was it two and a half hours ago?"

Development

Run the tests from src/time. They live in tests/: test_protocol.py drives the server through an MCP ClientSession in-process, test_eras.py runs a Client against it as a 2026-07-28 and as a 2025-11-25 client, test_entrypoints.py covers main(), python -m mcp_server_time and the console script, and test_server.py unit-tests the time helpers.

cd src/time
uv run pytest

Coverage is a separate command. It measures line and branch coverage of src/mcp_server_time, prints the missing lines, and writes coverage.json (ignored by git):

cd src/time
uv run --frozen pytest --cov --cov-report=term-missing --cov-report=json

Every file must reach 90% of its lines and 90% of its branches. Code that cannot be reached is marked # pragma: no cover # <reason>, always with the reason, rather than lowering the bar.

Build

Docker build:

cd src/time
docker build -t mcp/time .

Contributing

We encourage contributions to help improve mcp-server-time. Bug reports, ideas for new time-related tools, enhancements to existing functionality, and documentation improvements are all valuable.

For examples of other MCP servers and implementation patterns, see: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers

Contributions arrive as issues, not pull requests: the repository maintainers do the implementation. Open an issue with the bug report or feature request form, and if you have already prototyped a change, share the prompt you used rather than a diff. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full policy.

License

mcp-server-time is licensed under the MIT License. This means you are free to use, modify, and distribute the software, subject to the terms and conditions of the MIT License. For more details, please see the LICENSE file in the project repository.