revert: drop "Current Date:" label, keep [Wed YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM TZ]

Small model testing showed the label did not meaningfully help:
- Sub-3B models fail regardless of format
- 8B models untested with label specifically
- Frontier models never needed it

The bracket convention [Wed 2026-01-28 22:30 EST] matches existing
channel envelope format and is widely present in training data.
Saves ~2-3 tokens per message vs the labeled version.
This commit is contained in:
Conroy Whitney
2026-01-28 22:40:48 -05:00
committed by Tak Hoffman
parent b6c8c1e89d
commit 8a5b139a9f
3 changed files with 14 additions and 15 deletions

View File

@@ -53,14 +53,13 @@ export function injectTimestamp(message: string, opts?: TimestampInjectionOption
const formatted = formatZonedTimestamp(now, timezone);
if (!formatted) return message;
// "Current Date:" label is unambiguous even for tiny models (1.7B+).
// 3-letter DOW included because small models can't derive it from a date.
// Total cost: ~18 tokens — saves thousands when it prevents hallucination.
// 3-letter DOW: small models (8B) can't reliably derive day-of-week from
// a date, and may treat a bare "Wed" as a typo. Costs ~1 token.
const dow = new Intl.DateTimeFormat("en-US", { timeZone: timezone, weekday: "short" }).format(
now,
);
return `[Current Date: ${dow} ${formatted}] ${message}`;
return `[${dow} ${formatted}] ${message}`;
}
/**