Problem

Fixes: #10841

The cron scheduler requires ISO-8601 timestamps for schedule.at jobs, but agents don't have access to the current time in a machine-readable format. When users ask to "set a reminder in 30 minutes", the agent has to guess the target timestamp — often getting it wrong.

The system prompt only includes the timezone (e.g., Time zone: America/Chicago), not the actual time. The existing hint says to call session_status, but that tool only returned human-readable time like:

🕒 Time: Friday, February 6th, 2026 — 2:32 PM (America/New_York)

This isn't useful for calculating now + 1800 seconds or formatting an ISO-8601 timestamp.

Solution

Enhance session_status to include machine-readable timestamps:

🕒 Time: Friday, February 6th, 2026 — 2:32 PM (America/New_York)
   ISO-8601: 2026-02-06T19:32:45.123Z | Unix: 1738874365

Also update the system prompt hint to mention these formats are available for scheduling.

Why not inject time into the system prompt?

Several PRs have attempted to add current time to the system prompt:

• fix: include day of week in date/time context injection (#4629) #4637, Show timezone abbreviation in system prompt #4901, fix: Display day of week in system prompt time section #7435, feat(agents): include full date with day of week in system prompt #3698, feat(agents): include full date with day of week in system prompt #2154, feat: include day of week in date/time context injection #4816, feat(system-prompt): add formatted date with day of week #1915

The problem is prompt cache stability. The system prompt is cached, and injecting a timestamp that changes every second/minute breaks caching. This was an intentional design decision (see commit 66eec29).

Our approach keeps the system prompt stable while giving agents access to precise timestamps when they need them via a tool call.

Related Issues

Main tracking issue: #10841

• System prompt: include actual date/time instead of just timezone #7650 — System prompt: include actual date/time instead of just timezone
• Include day of week in system prompt date/time injection #9899 — Include day of week in system prompt date/time injection
• Feature Request: Add timezone-aware local time to CONTEXT ENTRY #10071 — Add timezone-aware local time to CONTEXT ENTRY
• Session Date Context Drift Causes Memory File Fragmentation #4706 — Session Date Context Drift Causes Memory File Fragmentation

Test Plan

• session_status now returns ISO-8601 and Unix timestamps
• System prompt hint updated to mention scheduling formats
• Tests added for new timestamp output
• All existing tests pass

Greptile Overview

Greptile Summary

• Extends the session_status tool output to include machine-readable current timestamps (ISO-8601 and Unix seconds) alongside the existing human-readable time.
• Updates the agent system prompt hint to explicitly mention the new scheduling-friendly timestamp formats.
• Adds/updates tests to assert the presence of the ISO-8601 and Unix timestamp lines in session_status output and the system prompt hint text.
• Implementation is localized to src/agents/tools/session-status-tool.ts and prompt construction in src/agents/system-prompt.ts, aligning with the repo’s existing “tool call for current time” approach rather than injecting time into the system prompt.

Confidence Score: 5/5

• This PR is safe to merge with minimal risk.
• Changes are small and well-scoped (string formatting + prompt hint + tests). No behavior changes outside session_status output formatting. Only noted issue is a brittle test/implicit contract around Unix timestamp digit length, which is easy to adjust.
• src/agents/openclaw-tools.session-status.test.ts

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