The current time: clock.now

clock.now is the time an operation started. It is fixed for the whole operation, nested actions included, so every timestamp one request writes agrees. A later request, schedule run or retry gets a new value. There is no way to read a fresher time, and code never reads the system clock.

Only actions read the clock. Functions and queries must give the same answer for the same arguments, so they take the time as a parameter (type.clock_context otherwise). A query's condition may compare with clock.now, which is then the calling action's (Filters):

type ReminderCutoff = Instant {}/// The latest due time a reminder goes out for now: an hour ahead.action reminder_cutoff() -> ReminderCutoff {    return ReminderCutoff(clock.now + 1h)}test "an action reads the test's clock" {    clock: "2026-01-15T12:00:00Z"    assert reminder_cutoff() == ReminderCutoff("2026-01-15T13:00:00Z")    clock.advance(30m)    assert reminder_cutoff() == ReminderCutoff("2026-01-15T13:30:00Z")}

A test fixes the clock with clock: and moves it with clock.advance(...), as above (Controlling time).

Timeouts are measured on a separate clock that changes to the wall clock can't move, and code never sees it. The SQL Jadpo generates always passes the time as a value, and never uses the database's own now(). The random namespace can be read only in actions in the same way (type.random_context, Randomness).