1. Reference
  2. reference/date-and-time-input-formats

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Date and Time Input Formats

Use one parsing contract across commands.

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Canonical choices

  • Prefer RFC3339 in automation: 2026-02-13T15:04:05Z
  • Use YYYY-MM-DD for date-only fields (birthdays, date-only due values)
  • Keep timezone explicit when time matters

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Accepted input formats

  • Date-only: YYYY-MM-DD
  • Datetime: RFC3339 / RFC3339Nano
  • ISO offset without colon: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS-0800
  • Local datetime (no timezone):
    • YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM[:SS]
    • YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM[:SS]

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Relative forms

Calendar range flags (--from / --to) also accept:

  • now, today, tomorrow, yesterday
  • Weekday names: monday, next friday

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Duration forms

Tracking --since also accepts time.ParseDuration values such as:

  • 24h
  • 15m

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Agent guidance

  • Generate RFC3339 for all datetime fields by default.
  • Use date-only for fields explicitly documented as dates.
  • For local scheduling, pass an explicit offset (or timezone-aware RFC3339) to avoid ambiguity.