I often need to add a last updated timestamp to my apps. For example on developer documentation etc.
Cursor consistently gets the date and year incorrect and when I query it, says it doesn’t have access to the date and time.
is this normal ?
Prompt: Can you tell me what day and date and time it is?
Cursor: Today is Wednesday, February 14, 2024. I don’t have access to the current time.
Hey, yes, that’s normal. No AI through an API will tell you what today’s date is because they don’t have access to real-time updates.
OpenAI:
Anthropic:
Its unexpected in the context of coding. Certain files need current date at least if not even time. I believe as Cursor added coding features for AI this part is missing
I also would like to use the current date in the naming of my adrs for instance.
I wonder if you could work around this limitation of LLMs with an mdc rule forcing cursor to run ‘date “+%Y-%m-%d”’ at the beginning of a composer session and use it inside the files created.
Here is my workaround that works in composer.
.cursor/rules/105-composer-date.mdc file with the below content# Composer Date Handling
## Context
- When working with composer files or documentation that requires current date
- When date formatting needs to be consistent across the project
- When automated date insertion is needed
## Requirements
- Execute `date +%Y-%m-%d` to get the current date in YYYY-MM-DD format
- Store the date result in context for use in the current session
- Use the stored date consistently across all files that need it
- Update the date when a new session starts or when explicitly requested
## Examples
<example>
When asked about the current date or needing to insert it:
1. Execute: `date +%Y-%m-%d`
2. Store result (e.g., "2024-03-21")
3. Use stored date in files or responses
</example>
<example type="invalid">
- Do not hardcode dates
- Do not use different date formats
- Do not skip executing the date command when a new date is needed
</example>
Kinda overengineered, but why not 
sure but spending a prompt every time the IDE needs to include a date into code or docu? ufff
FYI: The ChatGPT interface includes the current date in its system prompt, and Zed supports this via a command.
To work around this I created a crontab in my system that will update a Cursor rule e.g. 0000-current-datetime.mdc with the current datetime e.g. 2025-03-03 17:56 CET. You then have to gitignore that file.
This is way over engineered as well but at least it does not require any command breaking the LLM output streaming.
@Cursor team please add this in context 
yeah, its interesting that Cursor always ads CWD to the prompt where its actually strange to have it sent to AI all the time unnecessarily. date-time would help so much.
