feat: append UTC time alongside local time in shared Current time lines (#32423)

Merged via squash.

Prepared head SHA: 9e8ec13933
Co-authored-by: jriff <50276+jriff@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: altaywtf <9790196+altaywtf@users.noreply.github.com>
Reviewed-by: @altaywtf

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -140,6 +140,7 @@ Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai
 
 - Agents/failover cooldown classification: stop treating generic `cooling down` text as provider `rate_limit` so healthy models no longer show false global cooldown/rate-limit warnings while explicit `model_cooldown` markers still trigger failover. (#32972) thanks @stakeswky.
 - Agents/failover service-unavailable handling: stop treating bare proxy/CDN `service unavailable` errors as provider overload while keeping them retryable via the timeout/failover path, so transient outages no longer show false rate-limit warnings or block fallback. (#36646) thanks @jnMetaCode.
+- Agents/current-time UTC anchor: append a machine-readable UTC suffix alongside local `Current time:` lines in shared cron-style prompt contexts so agents can compare UTC-stamped workspace timestamps without doing timezone math. (#32423) thanks @jriff.
 
 ## 2026.3.2
 

src/agents/current-time.ts

@@ -25,7 +25,8 @@ export function resolveCronStyleNow(cfg: TimeConfigLike, nowMs: number): CronSty
   const userTimeFormat = resolveUserTimeFormat(cfg.agents?.defaults?.timeFormat);
   const formattedTime =
     formatUserTime(new Date(nowMs), userTimezone, userTimeFormat) ?? new Date(nowMs).toISOString();
-  const timeLine = `Current time: ${formattedTime} (${userTimezone})`;
+  const utcTime = new Date(nowMs).toISOString().replace("T", " ").slice(0, 16) + " UTC";
+  const timeLine = `Current time: ${formattedTime} (${userTimezone}) / ${utcTime}`;
   return { userTimezone, formattedTime, timeLine };
 }
 

src/auto-reply/reply/memory-flush.test.ts

@@ -20,8 +20,9 @@ describe("resolveMemoryFlushPromptForRun", () => {
     });
 
     expect(prompt).toContain("memory/2026-02-16.md");
-    expect(prompt).toContain("Current time:");
-    expect(prompt).toContain("(America/New_York)");
+    expect(prompt).toContain(
+      "Current time: Monday, February 16th, 2026 — 10:00 AM (America/New_York) / 2026-02-16 15:00 UTC",
+    );
   });
 
   it("does not append a duplicate current time line", () => {

src/auto-reply/reply/post-compaction-context.test.ts

@@ -203,7 +203,7 @@ Never modify memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md destructively.
 `;
     fs.writeFileSync(path.join(tmpDir, "AGENTS.md"), content);
     const cfg = {
-      agents: { defaults: { userTimezone: "America/New_York" } },
+      agents: { defaults: { userTimezone: "America/New_York", timeFormat: "12" } },
     } as OpenClawConfig;
     // 2026-03-03 14:00 UTC = 2026-03-03 09:00 EST
     const nowMs = Date.UTC(2026, 2, 3, 14, 0, 0);
@@ -211,8 +211,9 @@ Never modify memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md destructively.
     expect(result).not.toBeNull();
     expect(result).toContain("memory/2026-03-03.md");
     expect(result).not.toContain("memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md");
-    expect(result).toContain("Current time:");
-    expect(result).toContain("America/New_York");
+    expect(result).toContain(
+      "Current time: Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 — 9:00 AM (America/New_York) / 2026-03-03 14:00 UTC",
+    );
   });
 
   it("appends current time line even when no YYYY-MM-DD placeholder is present", async () => {

src/auto-reply/reply/session-reset-prompt.test.ts

@@ -11,13 +11,14 @@ describe("buildBareSessionResetPrompt", () => {
 
   it("appends current time line so agents know the date", () => {
     const cfg = {
-      agents: { defaults: { userTimezone: "America/New_York" } },
+      agents: { defaults: { userTimezone: "America/New_York", timeFormat: "12" } },
     } as OpenClawConfig;
     // 2026-03-03 14:00 UTC = 2026-03-03 09:00 EST
     const nowMs = Date.UTC(2026, 2, 3, 14, 0, 0);
     const prompt = buildBareSessionResetPrompt(cfg, nowMs);
-    expect(prompt).toContain("Current time:");
-    expect(prompt).toContain("America/New_York");
+    expect(prompt).toContain(
+      "Current time: Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 — 9:00 AM (America/New_York) / 2026-03-03 14:00 UTC",
+    );
   });
 
   it("does not append a duplicate current time line", () => {

src/cron/isolated-agent.uses-last-non-empty-agent-text-as.test.ts

@@ -354,7 +354,7 @@ describe("runCronIsolatedAgentTurn", () => {
       const lines = call?.prompt?.split("\n") ?? [];
       expect(lines[0]).toContain("[cron:job-1");
       expect(lines[0]).toContain("do it");
-      expect(lines[1]).toMatch(/^Current time: .+ \(.+\)$/);
+      expect(lines[1]).toMatch(/^Current time: .+ \(.+\) \/ \d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2} \d{2}:\d{2} UTC$/);
     });
   });