Dates-LE

Extract dates and timestamps from logs, data files and code, with their format and position.
Open source Open in the app JSON README (API)
About

Extract dates and timestamps from logs, data files and code, with their format and position.
Details

Kind: MCP servers
Topic: No topic detected
Publisher: nolindnaidoo
Origin: official
Category: ferramentas
Transport: local
Version: 2.3.0
Stars: 1
Last push: 2026-09-01T15:18:32Z
Repository state: ativo
Language: TypeScript
License: MIT
Added: 2026-08-29 04:00:55
Updated: 2026-08-29 04:00:55
Origin id: io.github.nolindnaidoo/dates-le
README

<p align="center">
  <img src="src/assets/images/icon.png" alt="Dates-LE Logo" width="96" height="96"/>
</p>
<h1 align="center">Dates-LE: Zero Hassle Date Extraction</h1>
<p align="center">
  <b>Pull every date and timestamp out of the current file in one keystroke</b><br/>
  <i>Any text file — JSON, YAML, CSV, XML, TOML, Markdown, logs, HTML, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Go, and the rest</i>
</p>

<p align="center">
  <a href="https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=nolindnaidoo.dates-le">
    <img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Install%20from-VS%20Code-blue?style=for-the-badge&logo=visualstudiocode" alt="Install from VS Code Marketplace" />
  </a>
  <a href="https://open-vsx.org/extension/OffensiveEdge/dates-le">
    <img src="https://img.shields.io/open-vsx/dt/OffensiveEdge/dates-le?style=for-the-badge&label=Open%20VSX&color=blue" alt="Open VSX downloads" />
  </a>
  <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/dates-le-mcp">
    <img src="https://img.shields.io/npm/v/dates-le-mcp?style=for-the-badge&label=MCP%20server&color=blue&logo=npm" alt="dates-le-mcp on npm" />
  </a>
  <a href="https://crates.io/crates/dates-le">
    <img src="https://img.shields.io/crates/v/dates-le?style=for-the-badge&label=Rust%20CLI&color=blue&logo=rust" alt="dates-le on crates.io" />
  </a>
  <a href="https://letools.dev/tools/dates-le">
    <img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/LE%20Tools-letools.dev-blue?style=for-the-badge" alt="LE Tools" />
  </a>
</p>

---

<p align="center">
  <img src="src/assets/images/demo.gif" alt="Dates-LE Demo" style="max-width: 100%; height: auto;" />
</p>

> **Useful?** A star or rating is how other developers find it —
> [★ GitHub](https://github.com/nolindnaidoo/dates-le) ·
> [★ Open VSX](https://open-vsx.org/extension/OffensiveEdge/dates-le/reviews) ·
> [★ Marketplace](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=nolindnaidoo.dates-le&ssr=false#review-details)

## What it does

Open a file, press `Ctrl+Alt+D` (`Cmd+Alt+D` on Mac), and every date in the document lands in a new editor — deduplicate, sort, analyze, convert, filter, or validate it from there. Works in VS Code and in VS Code–based editors like Cursor and VSCodium (installable from Open VSX).

- **Log analysis** — timestamps from server logs: ISO, syslog, and Apache access-log formats
- **Data review** — dates and epochs from JSON, YAML, CSV, and XML
- **Code audit** — date literals and `new Date()`/`Date.parse()`/`moment()`/`dayjs()`/`DateTime.fromISO()` arguments in JS/TS, including calls formatted across multiple lines

## Install

| Where | What you get | Install |
|---|---|---|
| **VS Code** | The extraction, in your editor, on a keystroke | [Marketplace](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=nolindnaidoo.dates-le) |
| **Cursor, VSCodium, Windsurf** | The same extension | [Open VSX](https://open-vsx.org/extension/OffensiveEdge/dates-le) |
| **A terminal or a CI step** | The same run over a whole tree, with exit codes | `cargo install dates-le` · [crates.io](https://crates.io/crates/dates-le) |
| **Any MCP agent, via Node** | `extract_dates` over stdio | `npx dates-le-mcp` · [npm](https://www.npmjs.com/package/dates-le-mcp) |
| **Zed** | The MCP server as a context server | [zed-industries/extensions#7079](https://github.com/zed-industries/extensions/pull/7079) *(pending review)* |

## Use it from an AI agent

The same engine runs as an [MCP](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) server, so an agent can call it directly instead of you running a command.

| Editor | How |
|---|---|
| **VS Code** 1.101+ | Nothing to install — the extension registers `extract_dates` with agent mode |
| **Zed** | [Dates-LE](https://github.com/zed-industries/extensions/pull/7079) — *pending review* |
| **Claude Code** | `claude mcp add dates-le -- npx -y dates-le-mcp` |
| **Cursor, Windsurf, anything else** | point it at `npx dates-le-mcp` |

```
extract_dates(content, format?, filename?, dedupe?, maxResults?)
```

Returns every date with its notation, epoch value where resolvable, and 1-based line and column, capped at 500 by default with `meta.truncated`.

The server takes content and returns data — it reads no files and makes no network requests of its own. Published as [`dates-le-mcp`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/dates-le-mcp) on npm and as `io.github.nolindnaidoo/dates-le` in the [MCP registry](https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io).

<details>
<summary><b>Configuring it by hand</b> — any host with an MCP config file</summary>

Most hosts read a JSON config. Add one entry:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dates-le": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "dates-le-mcp"]
    }
  }
}
```

`-y` skips the install prompt on first run. Pin a version if you would rather not track releases — `dates-le-mcp@2.3.1`.

Prefer not to go through `npx` on every launch? Install it once and point at the binary instead:

```bash
npm install -g dates-le-mcp
```

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dates-le": { "command": "dates-le-mcp" }
  }
}
```

It speaks MCP over stdio and needs no environment variables, no API key and no configuration of its own. To check it before wiring it into anything:

```bash
echo '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}' | npx -y dates-le-mcp
```

That prints the tool list and exits — if you see `extract_dates`, the server works.

</details>

## Supported formats

| Format | Language IDs | What gets extracted |
|---|---|---|
| JSON | `json` | Every recognized date pattern in the content |
| YAML | `yaml`, `yml` | Every recognized date pattern in the content |
| CSV | `csv` | Every recognized date pattern, cell by cell |
| XML | `xml` | Date patterns outside comments (inline and multiline comments are skipped) |
| Log / plain text | `log`, `plaintext` | Everything above plus `YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss` log lines, syslog (`Mon DD HH:mm:ss`), and Apache access-log timestamps |
| JavaScript / TypeScript | `javascript`, `javascriptreact`, `typescript`, `typescriptreact` | Everything above plus string arguments to `new Date()`, `Date.parse()`, `moment()`, `dayjs()`, `DateTime.fromISO()` |
| HTML | `html` | Everything above plus `datetime` attributes, date-bearing `<meta>` tags, and JSON-LD `datePublished`/`dateModified` |
| TOML / Markdown | `toml`, `markdown`, `md` | Every recognized date pattern in the content |
| INI / properties | `ini`, `cfg`, `conf`, `properties` | Every recognized date pattern in the content |
| **Anything else** | every other language ID | Every recognized date pattern in the content |

**Every document is read.** A format only ever *adds* patterns to the shared ones, so a language ID this does not name — Python, Go, Rust, shell, SQL — is scanned with the shared patterns rather than refused. What it does not get is the format-specific extras: `Jan 15 10:30:47` is a date in a log file and three words in a Python one.

Recognized date patterns: ISO 8601 in extended (`2024-01-15T10:30:00Z`, with optional milliseconds and offset), **basic** (`20240115`, `20240115T103045Z`), **week** (`2024-W03`, `2024-W03-1`) and **ordinal** (`2024-015`) form; RFC 2822 (`Mon, 15 Jan 2024 10:30:00 GMT`); Unix epochs in seconds, milliseconds, microseconds and nanoseconds (exactly 10, 13, 16 or 19 digits; everything wider than 10 must also land between 2001-09-09 and 2100, so a request id or a card number is not a date in the 2200s, and digits embedded in longer numbers or in the fraction of a float are never matched at all); UTC strings; US-style `M/D/YYYY HH:mm:ss`; and bare `YYYY-MM-DD`. Every occurrence is reported with its real line and column. Values that cannot be resolved to a timestamp are not extracted.

Timezone names are the fixed offsets `GMT`/`UT`/`UTC`/`Z`, the eight US abbreviations, and `CEST`, `CET`, `BST`, `JST`, `AEST`, `IST`. They are fixed, not zone-aware.

Known limitations: `M/D/YYYY` assumes US ordering; syslog lines carry no year, so the current year is assumed; `IST` names three different zones and is read as India's `+05:30`; a bare 8-digit run is only a date inside 1900–2099, and a 10-digit number in the plausible epoch range cannot be told from a phone number.

## The CLI

The same extraction runs from a terminal or a CI step: a Rust CLI in
[`crate/`](crate/README.md), sharing one corpus with the extension —
[`crate/fixtures/`](crate/fixtures/) — so the two can never read a
document differently.

```bash
dates-le .                          # every date in the tree, as JSON
dates-le --before 2026-01-01 .      # everything already in the past
dates-le --sort --iso config/       # ordered by instant, in readable form
dates-le mcp                        # the same extraction over MCP on stdio
```

**The instant is the point.** `2024-01-15`, `1705276800` and
`Mon, 15 Jan 2024` are one moment written three ways, and resolving each
to a number is what makes them sortable and comparable rather than three
strings to read. Resolution matches `Date.parse` in V8 exactly — legacy
parser included — against 178 cases taken from V8 itself.

A date with no timezone resolves against the machine's, because that is
the true answer and it genuinely differs by machine. `TZ` is honoured.

## Commands

| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| `Dates-LE: Extract Dates` (`Ctrl+Alt+D` / `Cmd+Alt+D`) | Extract all dates from the active document |
| `Dates-LE: Analyze Dates` | Statistics, patterns, clusters, gaps, and anomalies |
| `Dates-LE: Convert Dates` | Convert extracted dates to ISO, RFC 2822, Unix, UTC, local, simple, or a custom format |
| `Dates-LE: Filter Dates` | Filter by range, format, duplicates, future/past |
| `Dates-LE: Validate Dates` | Check extracted dates against selectable rules |
| `Dates-LE: Deduplicate Dates` | Remove duplicate lines from the results |
| `Dates-LE: Sort Dates` | Sort results chronologically or alphabetically |
| `Dates-LE: Open Settings` | Open Dates-LE settings |
| `Dates-LE: Help` | Built-in documentation |

## Settings

| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `dates-le.openResultsSideBySide` | `true` | Open results beside the current editor |
| `dates-le.copyToClipboardEnabled` | `false` | Also copy results to the clipboard |
| `dates-le.notificationsLevel` | `silent` | `all` = every notification, `important` = warnings + errors, `silent` = errors only |
| `dates-le.safety.enabled` | `true` | Guardrails for very large files |
| `dates-le.safety.fileSizeWarnBytes` | `1000000` | Refuse extraction above this file size |
| `dates-le.statusBar.enabled` | `true` | Show the status bar item |
| `dates-le.telemetryEnabled` | `false` | Local-only event log (see Privacy) |

## Languages

Twelve languages besides English:

German · Spanish · French · Indonesian · Italian · Japanese · Korean ·
Portuguese (Brazil) · Russian · Ukrainian · Vietnamese · Chinese (Simplified)

Both halves are covered — the manifest (command titles, setting names and
descriptions) and everything shown while the extension runs (notifications,
the status bar, quick-picks and prompts). The extension follows VS Code's
display language, so it matches whatever the editor is already set to; no
setting of its own.

## Privacy & security

- **No network access.** The extension never sends data anywhere. The `telemetryEnabled` setting only writes events to a local Output Channel you can inspect (`Dates-LE Telemetry`).
- **The MCP server holds the same line.** It takes content as an argument and returns data: no filesystem access, no network calls, no telemetry. Your agent already has file-read tools, so duplicating them inside the server would add a path-traversal surface for no capability. `check:mcp-bundle` fails the build if the server ever imports something that could reach either.
- Error notifications redact home directories and credential-shaped fragments.

## Documentation

| What | Where |
|---|---|
| What the tool is allowed to say — scope, output contract, refusals, non-goals | [`crate/SPEC.md`](crate/SPEC.md) |
| How the extension is built and held together — architecture, invariants, toolchain, release | [AGENTS.md](AGENTS.md) |
| How the CLI is built and held together | [`crate/AGENTS.md`](crate/AGENTS.md) |
| What changed | [CHANGELOG.md](CHANGELOG.md) · [`crate/CHANGELOG.md`](crate/CHANGELOG.md) |
| The tool's page, and the other fifteen | [letools.dev/tools/dates-le](https://letools.dev/tools/dates-le) |

## Performance

<!-- performance:start -->
| Input | Size | Found | Time | Rate | Scan speed |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Server log (ISO) | 1.74 MB | 40,000 | 139.92 ms | 285,887/sec | 12.5 MB/s |
| JSON records | 1.42 MB | 25,000 | 82.75 ms | 302,132/sec | 17.2 MB/s |
| CSV export | 0.64 MB | 40,000 | 39.15 ms | 1,021,610/sec | 16.3 MB/s |

Median of 7 runs after warmup, on Apple M5 Pro, 24 GB RAM, Node 24.3.0. Inputs are generated
by `scripts/benchmark.ts` rather than checked in, so the sizes above are
exactly what was measured. Reproduce with `bun run benchmark`.

These are machine-specific and are not asserted in CI — a benchmark that gates
a build only tells you how busy the runner was.
<!-- performance:end -->

## Testing

<!-- coverage:start -->
| Metric | Coverage |
| --- | --- |
| Statements | 91.69% |
| Branches | 81.39% |
| Functions | 96.32% |
| Lines | 92.97% |

228 test cases across 19 files, plus an integration suite that runs
in a real VS Code extension host and an end-to-end test that installs the
built `.vsix` into a clean profile.

Generated from a real run — `coverage/coverage-summary.json` and
`coverage/test-results.json` — by `scripts/coverage-readme.js`; CI fails if
this section drifts. Reproduce with `bun run test:coverage`, and the case
count is the one vitest prints.
<!-- coverage:end -->

## More from the LE family

Sixteen single-purpose tools for the work in front of every model. Each ships
a Rust CLI and an MCP server. One page: **[letools.dev](https://letools.dev)**

**Get it out**

- **[String-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/string-le)** — Extract every string in a codebase, with its position, so a person can read them
- **[Numbers-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/numbers-le)** — Extract every hardcoded number in a codebase, so a person can check them
- **[Units-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/units-le)** — Extract every quantity with its unit, normalized, and refuse the ambiguous ones by name
- **[Dates-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/dates-le)** — Extract every date and timestamp, and the exact instant each one resolves to
- **[IDs-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/ids-le)** — Extract every UUID, ULID, NanoID, ObjectId and Snowflake, and decode the time inside
- **[IPs-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/ips-le)** — Extract every IP address, CIDR block and MAC, normalized and classified by scope
- **[URLs-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/urls-le)** — Extract every URL in a codebase, with its protocol and exact position
- **[Paths-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/paths-le)** — Extract every file path in a codebase, and say whether it still points at anything
- **[Colors-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/colors-le)** — Extract every color in a codebase, and say which ones are not in your palette

**Check it**

- **[Regex-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/regex-le)** — Find every regex in a codebase, and report which can be driven into catastrophic backtracking
- **[Versions-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/versions-le)** — Find where one dependency is constrained differently across a repository's manifests
- **[i18n-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/i18n-le)** — Identify the i18n library a project uses, then audit its catalogs by that library's rules
- **[Scrape-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/scrape-le)** — Check whether a page is scrapeable before the scraper is written, and say when it cannot tell

**Guard it**

- **[Secrets-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/secrets-le)** — Find hardcoded credentials in a codebase, and never print one into the report
- **[EnvSync-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/envsync-le)** — Compare the dotenv files in a tree, and say which keys are missing from which
- **[Unicode-LE](https://letools.dev/tools/unicode-le)** — Find the Unicode that hides meaning — bidi controls, invisibles, homoglyphs, mixed scripts

Each stands on its own: no shared crate, no published core. Where two of them
agree, it is because the same answer was right twice.

**Contact** — [nolindnaidoo.com](https://nolindnaidoo.com) · [GitHub](https://github.com/nolindnaidoo) · [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolindnaidoo/)

## Also by nolindnaidoo

**Rust** — pixelcoords and pixelactions are one loop: pixelcoords answers
*where*, pixelactions *acts* there. Their own tools, their own voice — not
part of the LE family.

- **[pixelcoords](https://github.com/nolindnaidoo/pixelcoords)** — Freeze your screen, mark regions, get pixel-exact coordinates and crops
  [pixelcoords.dev](https://pixelcoords.dev) · [crates.io](https://crates.io/crates/pixelcoords) · [docs.rs](https://docs.rs/pixelcoords)
- **[pixelactions](https://github.com/nolindnaidoo/pixelactions)** — Consume human-verified coordinates, perform the interaction, confirm it landed
  [pixelactions.dev](https://pixelactions.dev) · [crates.io](https://crates.io/crates/pixelactions) · [docs.rs](https://docs.rs/pixelactions)

## License

MIT © [nolindnaidoo](https://github.com/nolindnaidoo)