Timestamp guide

What is epoch time?

Epoch time is a numeric representation of a moment, usually counted from 1970-01-01T00:00:00Z.

Unix epoch time is the number of seconds that have elapsed since midnight UTC on January 1, 1970. Developers use it because it is compact, language-neutral, and easy to sort.

Most Unix systems ignore leap seconds for everyday timestamp arithmetic. For logs, APIs, databases, and cron previews, always label whether a value is seconds, milliseconds, or microseconds.