Time

The Time server is one of the active reference servers in modelcontextprotocol/servers. At roughly 200 lines of Python it is the smallest of the reference set and a useful starting point for anyone learning how an MCP server is structured. What it does: - Reports the current time for any IANA time zone via the get_current_time tool - Converts a timestamp between two zones with the convert_time tool - Resolves zone abbreviations like PST or JST to the canonical IANA identifier - Returns both ISO 8601 strings and unix epochs so downstream tools never parse twice - Uses the host system tzdata so DST transitions are handled for free - Makes no network calls and holds no persistent state Example: Ask Claude "what time is 6pm Tokyo on Friday for someone in Lisbon" and the agent makes a single convert_time call that returns the local time in Europe/Lisbon plus a UTC anchor. Pair the server with a calendar MCP and the agent can read free/busy in the user's zone and propose meeting slots in the counterparty's zone. Setup: No configuration required. Optional LOCAL_TIMEZONE env var overrides the default inferred from the system. Install with "uvx mcp-server-time" for an isolated Python env or "pip install mcp-server-time". Transport: stdio only. Notes: The server does not reach out to the network or to NTP. If you need authoritative wall-clock time, source it from an upstream timeserver and pass the timestamp in. Intended as a primitive inside larger agents, not a user-facing clock. Good teaching example for anyone writing their first Python MCP server — the source is short enough to read in one sitting.