Feature request: configurable timezone for usage limit reset time display

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Mar 9, 2026 by 78ea283a9462a6e8 Closed Mar 13, 2026

Summary

The usage limit message currently hardcodes UTC:

You've hit your limit · resets 7am (UTC)

There is no way to configure this to display in the user's local timezone. UTC is a reasonable default but not the right default for most users — especially since the reset time (7am UTC) falls in the middle of the night for US-based users, making the displayed time feel arbitrary and unintuitive.

Requested change

Add a timezone setting to ~/.claude/settings.json (or equivalent) that controls how reset times are displayed in usage limit messages. For example:

{
  "timezone": "America/Los_Angeles"
}

Would display: resets 11:00 PM (Pacific)

Expected behavior

  • Default: display in the user's local system timezone (or UTC if system timezone is UTC)
  • Configurable: allow explicit override via settings
  • UTC remains the canonical internal representation — this is display-only

Why this matters

  • 7am UTC = 11pm PST / midnight PDT — not a meaningful time to display to a US West Coast user
  • Most major CLI tools that display times respect system locale/timezone
  • Users who hit the rate limit are already in a friction moment — making them do timezone math adds unnecessary friction

Workaround

Setting the OS timezone (sudo timedatectl set-timezone America/Los_Angeles) may cause Claude Code to pick up the system timezone, but this is a system-wide change rather than a per-user Claude Code setting, and it's not documented as a supported path.

Submitted on behalf of a Claude Code user.

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