Description
It would be useful to have an optional way to display the timestamp of each message directly in the chat UI.
This could be particularly useful for longer conversations, persisted chat history, debugging agent interactions, and applications where knowing when a message was sent is relevant.
Proposed behaviour
Message timestamps could be disabled by default to preserve the existing UI.
Users could optionally enable them through the Chainlit configuration, for example:
[UI]
show_message_timestamps = true
When enabled, the existing message creation timestamp could be displayed alongside the message author/name.
The initial implementation could remain intentionally simple:
- Disabled by default
- Display the existing message creation time
- Use the user’s local time
- Keep the current message layout/style
- No additional timestamp storage required
Motivation
Chainlit applications can have long-running conversations and persisted chat histories. When returning to an existing conversation, it can be difficult to understand when individual interactions occurred.
Timestamps could also be useful for:
- Agent debugging
- Long-running tool calls/workflows
- HITL interactions
- Persisted conversation history
- Audit-oriented applications
Existing request
I noticed that this was previously discussed in #2644 (“Optional Message Timestamps in the UI”).
I would be interested in contributing a small implementation if this is still something the maintainers would consider useful.
Before working on a PR, I wanted to check whether a minimal, opt-in implementation would be welcome and whether there is a preferred approach for exposing this through the UI configuration.
Description
It would be useful to have an optional way to display the timestamp of each message directly in the chat UI.
This could be particularly useful for longer conversations, persisted chat history, debugging agent interactions, and applications where knowing when a message was sent is relevant.
Proposed behaviour
Message timestamps could be disabled by default to preserve the existing UI.
Users could optionally enable them through the Chainlit configuration, for example:
[UI]
show_message_timestamps = true
When enabled, the existing message creation timestamp could be displayed alongside the message author/name.
The initial implementation could remain intentionally simple:
Motivation
Chainlit applications can have long-running conversations and persisted chat histories. When returning to an existing conversation, it can be difficult to understand when individual interactions occurred.
Timestamps could also be useful for:
Existing request
I noticed that this was previously discussed in #2644 (“Optional Message Timestamps in the UI”).
I would be interested in contributing a small implementation if this is still something the maintainers would consider useful.
Before working on a PR, I wanted to check whether a minimal, opt-in implementation would be welcome and whether there is a preferred approach for exposing this through the UI configuration.