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.
Summary
The usage limit message currently hardcodes 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
timezonesetting 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
Why this matters
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.