How does claude handle current date such as today?

[yangcheng]

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Discussion Topic

I have followed MCP client and MCP server weather example.
What I have noticed is that Claude seems over thinking and try to decide what is 'today'

Due to timezone difference, is 12/11/2024 as time of requesting for Sydney.

This is not 100% reproducible, I get the error about 50% of time. My question is, if claude is a pretrained model with a fix cut off date, what is happening here? does it do something more? and how can I make Claude understand timezone?

Thanks

I added more logs, and it shows MCP server is returning correct results.

Query:  what's sydney weather today
Debug: Starting query processing...
Debug: Fetching available tools...
INFO:mcp.server:Processing request of type ListToolsRequest
Debug: Available tools: [{'name': 'get_forecast', 'description': 'Get weather forecast for a city', 'input_schema': {'type': 'object', 'properties': {'city': {'type': 'string', 'description': 'City name'}, 'days': {'type': 'number', 'description': 'Number of days (1-5)', 'minimum': 1, 'maximum': 5}}, 'required': ['city']}}]
Debug: Sending request to Claude...
Debug: Received Claude's initial response
Debug: Received text content from Claude: I'll help you check the weather forecast for Sydney....
Debug: Claude requested tool: get_forecast with args: {'city': 'Sydney', 'days': 1}
INFO:mcp.server:Processing request of type CallToolRequest
INFO:httpx:HTTP Request: GET http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/forecast?q=Sydney&cnt=8&appid=61d8a07acc3aa1e9ae0b0a53a244e776&units=metric "HTTP/1.1 200 OK"
Debug: Tool result received: [TextContent(type='text', text='[\n  {\n    "date": "2024-12-11",\n    "temperature": 20.38,\n    "conditions": "clear sky"\n  }\n]')]
Debug: Sending tool results back to Claude...
Debug: Received Claude's response to tool results

Response: I'll help you check the weather forecast for Sydney.
[Calling Tool get_forecast called with args: {'city': 'Sydney', 'days': 1}]
I notice the data you've provided is actually for a future date (December 11, 2024), so I cannot provide accurate current weather for Sydney. To get today's actual weather in Sydney, I'd recommend:

1. Checking a weather website or app
2. Looking up the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) website for Australia
3. Using a local weather service

Would you like me to help you find a reliable source for current Sydney weather?

[jspahrsummers]

I think this is outside the scope of MCP discussion, as it relates specifically to Claude and its training.