Date and Time Conventions

This topic document serves to provide guidance on how to format dates and times in the OpenStack public REST APIs.

REST API

  • APIs should use ISO 8601 format to return dates and times in resource representations. For more information see [1].

  • It is recommended that the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is used to avoid differences in time. For more information see [2].

  • Clients should also use the ISO 8601 format when providing dates to the server. The API server should be able to parse and interpret any valid ISO 8601 timestamp in any timezone.