Opt-in durable context with the current zoned time and elapsed time at every model step. dsh-agent-spine-demo and shipped examples do not mount it. Decision record: the durable time-context RFC.

Config

- id: time-context
  name: '@deepseek-ai/dsh-time-context'
  config:
    timeZone: Asia/Shanghai  # optional IANA override; omit for the process zone

When timeZone is omitted, the plugin resolves the Node process's system zone once at plugin load. Node honors TZ; without that override, the host or container supplies the zone. An explicit timeZone must be an IANA identifier and is validated at plugin load.

Timing semantics

The plugin prepends an agent/pre-step listener. Every non-aborted step appends one context/message through agent.inject() before step/start and ordinary automatic compaction, with source { kind: 'plugin', plugin: 'time-context' }.

Step 1 measures from the latest preceding model-visible message, including the prompt that opened the turn. Later steps measure from the preceding time-context event. Both baselines use durable session-event timestamps; backward wall-clock movement clamps elapsed time to zero. A missing first-step baseline reports unavailable.

The time reading stays in derived conversation history until a later compaction shadows it. Request headers and header deltas contain no time-context state, so the durable message plus the matching step/start reconstruct each request's reading.

Model Experience

Per-step temporal context

What the model sees: Before each step, one source-tagged context message containing the two lines below. <timestamp> is an ISO-shaped local timestamp with numeric offset and IANA zone; durations use compact whole-second units.

Token effect: One two-line message accumulates per step until compaction shadows older history.

First step

Time recorded before turn <turn>, step 1: <timestamp>
Elapsed since the preceding model-visible message: <duration-or-unavailable>.

Later steps

Time recorded before turn <turn>, step <step>: <timestamp>
Elapsed since the preceding step context: <duration>.

Known Limitations and Deferred Work

Whole-second display — timestamps and durations omit sub-second precision even though durable event times retain milliseconds.
Session-event baseline — elapsed time starts from durable append timestamps, not a client transport's original send timestamp.
Process-local default zone — omission uses the Node process's TZ, host, or container zone captured at plugin load, not a remote user's zone; configure an explicit IANA zone when those differ.
History cost between compactions — one reading remains model-visible for every unshadowed step so prior timing claims stay historically truthful.