Working with dates in Argo Workflows can range from simple to unexpectedly challenging depending on your needs. Whether you're scheduling tasks, extracting specific parts of a date, or looping through hours for complex workflows there’s plenty you can achieve—but figuring it out might take some trial and error. In this post I’ll share practical tips and examples to help you navigate date handling more easily.
If you’re just starting with Argo Workflows I’ve written a guide to setting up workflows locally. Feel free to check it out—it’s a great place to start before diving into date operations. (For reference, I’m using Argo Workflows v3.5.11 in this post.)
Using workflow.creationTimestamp
Argo provides a built-in variable {{workflow.creationTimestamp}} which gives you the exact time when the workflow was created. This variable is extremely useful for creating timestamps or formatting dates.
- name: current-date
value: '{{workflow.creationTimestamp}}'
Example: Breaking It Down
Want to extract just the parts of the date? No problem:
- name: year
value: '{{workflow.creationTimestamp.Y}}'
- name: month
value: '{{workflow.creationTimestamp.m}}'
- name: day
value: '{{workflow.creationTimestamp.d}}'
- name: hour
value: '{{workflow.creationTimestamp.H}}'
- name: minute
value: '{{workflow.creationTimestamp.M}}'
- name: second
value: '{{workflow.creationTimestamp.S}}'
Adding Magic with the Sprig Library
If workflow.creationTimestamp helps you get started, the Sprig library helps you do more with dates like formatting them or calculating new ones. Let’s look at how you can format workflow.creationTimestamp using Sprig.
Example: Formatting the Creation Timestamp
Suppose you want to turn workflow.creationTimestamp into a simpler format like YYYY-MM-DD. The Sprig library makes this straightforward:
- name: creation-timestamp-formatted
value: '{{=sprig.date("2006-01-02", workflow.creationTimestamp)}}'
Note : The Sprig library uses Go’s date formatting style, where a specific reference date (
Mon Jan 2 15:04:05 MST 2006) serves as the template. For example:
-
2006represents the year. -
01represents the month. -
02represents the day. -
15:04represents hours and minutes in 24-hour time.
If you need additional formatting (e.g., including time), you can adjust the format string accordingly:
-
2006-01-02 15:04:05→2025-01-02 14:35:00
Example: Getting Yesterday's Date
Need to backtrack a bit? Here’s how to get yesterday’s date:
- name: yesterday
value: '{{=sprig.date("2006-01-02", sprig.dateModify("-24h", sprig.now()))}}'
What’s happening here?
-
2006-01-02is Sprig’s standard date format. (It’s a bit quirky, but you’ll get used to it!) -
-24hshifts the date back by 24 hours.
Example: Extracting Date Parts from Modified Dates
What if you want the year of yesterday’s date? Or the month? No problem:
- name: year
value: '{{=sprig.date("2006", sprig.dateModify("-24h", sprig.now()))}}'
- name: month
value: '{{=sprig.date("01", sprig.dateModify("-24h", sprig.now()))}}'
- name: day
value: '{{=sprig.date("02", sprig.dateModify("-24h", sprig.now()))}}'
Example: Converting Dates to Epoch Time
Need to work with epoch time? Sprig has you covered:
- name: parsedEpoch
value: "{{=sprig.unixEpoch(sprig.toDate('2006-01-02T15:04:05 MST', inputs.parameters.inputDate))}}"
- name: nowEpoch
value: "{{=sprig.unixEpoch(sprig.now())}}"
A Sample Workflow for Date Handling
To bring it all together, here’s a sample workflow that demonstrates how to extract and manipulate various parts of a date.
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Workflow
metadata:
name: date-example
spec:
entrypoint: main
arguments:
parameters:
- name: creation-timestamp
value: '{{workflow.creationTimestamp}}'
- name: today-year
value: '{{workflow.creationTimestamp.Y}}'
- name: today-month
value: '{{workflow.creationTimestamp.m}}'
- name: today-day
value: '{{workflow.creationTimestamp.d}}'
- name: creation-timestamp-formatted
value: '{{=sprig.date("2006-01-02", workflow.creationTimestamp)}}'
- name: yesterday
value: '{{=sprig.date("2006-01-02", sprig.dateModify("-24h", sprig.now()))}}'
- name: year
value: '{{=sprig.date("2006", sprig.dateModify("-24h", sprig.now()))}}'
- name: month
value: '{{=sprig.date("01", sprig.dateModify("-24h", sprig.now()))}}'
- name: day
value: '{{=sprig.date("02", sprig.dateModify("-24h", sprig.now()))}}'
- name: now-epoch
value: "{{=sprig.unixEpoch(sprig.now())}}"
templates:
- name: main
inputs:
parameters:
- name: creation-timestamp
- name: today-year
- name: today-month
- name: today-day
- name: creation-timestamp-formatted
- name: yesterday
- name: year
- name: month
- name: day
- name: now-epoch
container:
image: busybox
command: [sh, -c]
args:
- |
echo "Today's date: {{inputs.parameters.creation-timestamp}}";
echo "Today's year: {{inputs.parameters.today-year}}";
echo "Today's month: {{inputs.parameters.today-month}}";
echo "Today's day: {{inputs.parameters.today-day}}";
echo "Today's date formatted: {{inputs.parameters.creation-timestamp-formatted}}";
echo "Yesterday's date: {{inputs.parameters.yesterday}}";
echo "Year: {{inputs.parameters.year}}";
echo "Month: {{inputs.parameters.month}}";
echo "Day: {{inputs.parameters.day}}";
echo "Now-epoch: {{inputs.parameters.now-epoch}}";
And what it prints:
Looping Through Hours (Because Why Not?)
Sometimes you need to iterate through all the hours of the day—whether it’s for hourly jobs or logging. Argo’s withSequence makes this painless:
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Workflow
metadata:
generateName: loop-hours-example-
spec:
entrypoint: main
templates:
- name: main
steps:
- - name: hour-loop
template: print-hour
arguments:
parameters:
- name: hour
value: "{{item}}"
withSequence:
count: 24
start: 0
format: "%02d"
- name: print-hour
inputs:
parameters:
- name: hour
container:
image: busybox
command: [sh, -c]
args:
- |
echo "Processing hour: {{inputs.parameters.hour}}";
Here’s what’s happening:
-
withSequencegenerates a sequence from00to23. - Each hour is passed to the
hourparameter and printed.
Wrapping Up
That’s it! Hope this helps you handle dates in your Argo Workflows more smoothly. Let me know if you try it out or if you have your own tricks to share! 😊
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