How to include execution timestamp

From what I can tell the only way to include an execution timestamp is to use the ‘staticdata’ in a function node, which will only show data in production runs?

The result is apparently in unix, and the date & time node doesn’t seem to be capable of converting to date properly. I’m getting either a date far in the future or 1970 if I divide unix stamp by 1000.

Coming from Azure Data Factory where it’s very easy to include trigger-runtime in any pipeline, it surprises me that it’s so hard to do with n8n. (Granted, that is the only thing I’ve found was easier in ADF, where everything else is a thousand times easier in n8n :slight_smile:

  • n8n version: 0.191.1

Hi @samsamthewise :wave:t3:,

I’m not quite sure if you want to have live execution time or if it’s enough to display after the workflow is completed?

I currently don’t have a solution for the live view. For already executed ones you can go to the corresponding node in the UI and there (after execution) click on the (i)
grafik

You can also use the API:
http://localhost:5678/api/v1/executions/{id}?includeData=true

and then extract the needed data.

Hey @samsamthewise,

I guess this depends on what you want to do with the execution timestamp, You could add a date and time node at the start of your workflow which should be all good assuming the generic timezone and tz option is set to the timezone you are after. If it isn’t working it would be nice to have some more details on that so we can look into it more.

Another option would be to use a set node with an expression like {{$now}}, If you are after previous execution times it is a bit trickier and there is the internal api route, static data or if you are using a different database you could extract it that way.

The {{now}} was exactly what I was looking for.

Can you please help me with where I could’ve found this in the documentation? I searched for keywords like
“execution time”, “execution timestamp”, “trigger run time”.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks BillAlex, I need the timestamp at runtime so I can include it in the output of the workflow.

Jon’s simple solution was what I was looking for.

Variables - n8n Documentation :wink:
Keyword: (current) timestamp

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