MCP Time Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides current time from internet time servers with timezone support.

Features

Fetches accurate time from NTP servers (pool.ntp.org)
Supports custom timezone configuration via environment variable
Graceful error handling for network issues and invalid timezones
Compatible with Claude Desktop

Installation

Install the required dependencies:

pip install mcp ntplib pytz

Install the server in Claude Desktop with your preferred timezone:

mcp install timeserver.py -e TIMEZONE=America/New_York

Locate the claude_desktop_config.json and add (or change as mcp command generates it) to "mcpServers" the "Time Server":

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Time Server": {
      "command": "/path/to/python",
      "args": [
        "/path/to/timeserver.py"
      ],
      "env": {
        "TIMEZONE": "America/New_York"
      }
    }
  }
}

You can set any valid timezone name from the IANA Time Zone Database. Some common examples:

'America/New_York'
'Europe/London'
'Asia/Tokyo'
'US/Pacific'
'UTC' (default if no timezone is specified)

Usage

Once installed, you can ask Claude to use the get_current_time tool to fetch and display the current time in your configured timezone. The tool will:

Connect to pool.ntp.org to get the accurate current time
Convert the time to your specified timezone (or UTC if none specified)
Return a formatted string with the current date, time, and timezone

Error Handling

The server handles several types of errors gracefully:

Network connectivity issues when reaching the NTP server
Invalid timezone specifications (falls back to UTC)
General exceptions with informative error messages

Dependencies

mcp: Model Context Protocol SDK
ntplib: NTP client library
pytz: Timezone database and utilities