FAQ

Frequently asked questions about AgenticTime.

General

What is AgenticTime?

AgenticTime is a temporal reasoning engine for AI agents. It provides structured types for deadlines, durations, schedules, sequences, and decay curves, persisted in a portable .atime file and exposed via MCP.

Do I need other Agentra sisters to use AgenticTime?

No. AgenticTime is fully standalone. It works independently as a single MCP server binary. Integration with AgenticMemory, AgenticVision, AgenticCodebase, and AgenticIdentity is optional and additive.

What file format does AgenticTime use?

AgenticTime uses the .atime binary format with magic bytes ATIM, version 1. Entities are MessagePack-encoded with a sorted index for fast lookups.

Is my data stored locally?

Yes. All data is stored in a local .atime file. Nothing is sent to any remote server. The MCP server runs locally over stdio.

Installation

Which platforms are supported?

macOS (x86_64, aarch64), Linux (x86_64, aarch64), and Windows (x86_64).

How do I update AgenticTime?

Re-run the installer. It will download the latest binary and update in place:

curl -fsSL https://agentralabs.tech/install/time | bash

Can I install from source?

Yes. The installer falls back to cargo install if no pre-built binary is available. You can also build directly:

cargo install --git https://github.com/agentralabs/agentic-time --locked agentic-time-mcp

MCP

Which MCP clients work with AgenticTime?

Any MCP-compatible client: Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, Codex, and any custom JSON-RPC 2.0 MCP client.

How do I check if the MCP server is running?

agentic-time-mcp serve
# Press Ctrl+C after seeing the startup message

Can I run multiple AgenticTime servers?

Yes. Each project gets its own .atime file, so multiple servers can run simultaneously for different projects.

Temporal Reasoning

How does decay work?

Decay models how information freshness decreases over time. The default exponential curve has a 168-hour (7-day) half-life: after one week, freshness is 50%. After two weeks, 25%. The curve and parameters are configurable.

Can I use custom decay curves?

Yes. AgenticTime supports exponential, linear, and step curves with configurable parameters:

atime decay configure my-curve --curve exponential --halflife 336

How are scheduling conflicts detected?

AgenticTime expands recurring schedules into individual occurrences and checks for time-window overlaps. Two events conflict if their time windows overlap by any amount.

What happens when a deadline depends on another?

Deadline dependencies create a directed acyclic graph. If a prerequisite deadline is not completed, the dependent deadline is flagged as blocked. Cascade analysis shows the full impact of delays.

Data

How large can a .atime file get?

There is no hard limit. Files with 100,000 entities are approximately 9 MB. Performance remains sub-millisecond for most operations up to 10,000 entities.

Can I export my data?

Yes. Export to JSON or iCal:

atime export --format json > timeline.json
atime export --type schedule --format ical > calendar.ics

Can I merge two .atime files?

Yes, via import:

atime export --format json -f other.atime | atime import --merge

Security

Is authentication required?

Only in server profile mode. Desktop and terminal profiles do not require authentication. Server mode requires AGENTIC_TOKEN or AGENTIC_TOKEN_FILE.

Is my data encrypted?

Not currently. The .atime file is stored in plaintext on disk. Encryption at rest is planned for a future release. Use filesystem-level encryption if needed.