time

---
name: time
description: Report the current time at a given location. Accepts a city name (e.g., "Iowa City", "NYC", "London", "Mumbai") or an IANA timezone name ("America/Chicago"). Defaults to Iowa City if no location is provided. Returns local date/time, timezone abbreviation, UTC offset, and ISO-8601 timestamp. Use when the user asks "what time is it?", "what time is it in X?", "check the time", or any variation that requires knowing the current wall-clock time somewhere in the world.
---

# time

Report the current time at a given location.

## Arguments

`<location>` — optional. One of:
- **City name** — e.g., `Iowa City`, `NYC`, `San Francisco`, `London`, `Tokyo`, `Mumbai`
- **IANA timezone name** — e.g., `America/Chicago`, `Europe/London`, `Asia/Kolkata`
- **Omitted** — defaults to `Iowa City`

## Workflow

### Step 0: Resolve location

- If the user provided a location, use it.
- If not, default to `Iowa City`.
- Do NOT ask the user "where?" when they just say `/time` — the default handles that case.

### Step 1: Run the helper

```bash
python3 ~/.claude/skills/time/helpers/time_at.py "<location>"
```

The helper:
1. Normalizes the location string
2. Looks it up in an internal city → IANA timezone map (~60 common cities)
3. Falls back to treating the input as a raw IANA timezone name
4. Uses Python's `zoneinfo` to get current time in that timezone
5. Prints location, timezone, local time, and ISO-8601

### Step 2: Report

Report the local time conversationally. Include at minimum:
- The city or location the user asked about
- The current local time (12-hour with AM/PM is usually friendlier than 24-hour)
- If relevant, the UTC offset or timezone abbreviation

## Implementation notes

- Uses only Python stdlib (`datetime`, `zoneinfo`) — no external dependencies
- The city-to-timezone map is in `helpers/time_at.py` — extend as needed
- Unknown locations fail gracefully with a message asking for an IANA timezone
- No network calls — pure local computation

## Do-not-touch rules

- Never assume time without resolving the timezone. Iowa is NOT the same as Eastern or UTC.
- Never use the robot's internal "current date" context if a fresh wall-clock reading is what's needed — call the helper.
- Never modify the system clock.