sync: auto-sync from GURU-BEAST-ROG at 2026-07-09 10:09:06

Author: Mike Swanson
Machine: GURU-BEAST-ROG
Timestamp: 2026-07-09 10:09:06

.claude/memory/feedback_gitbash_tz_ignored.md

@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+# Git Bash `TZ=` is silently ignored on Windows — never use it for current-time reporting
+
+**Date:** 2026-07-09
+**Source:** Winter correction, Len's Auto browser-hijack thread (Discord bot session)
+
+## What happened
+Reported "current time" to Winter as `4:40 PM AZ` using
+`TZ="America/Phoenix" date '+... AZ'` in Git Bash on BEAST. MSYS/Git-Bash has no
+tzdata for that zone name, so `TZ` was silently ignored and the command printed
+**UTC** (16:40) — which the format string then labeled "AZ". Real local time was
+9:40 AM AZ. Winter caught it; caused a confusing side-quest about whether BEAST's
+clock was a month off (it wasn't — clock + NTP + timezone all correct).
+
+## Rule
+- For current date/time on a Windows machine: use **PowerShell `Get-Date`**
+  (system local time — BEAST is already set to Arizona), or `date` in bash with
+  NO TZ override (MSYS date honors the Windows local zone), or an external HTTP
+  `Date:` header for authoritative UTC.
+- Never trust `TZ=<IANA zone>` in Git Bash — unknown zones fall back to UTC with
+  no error, and a hardcoded zone label in the format string turns that into a
+  confidently-wrong answer.
+- Calendar math (`date -d 2026-06-05 +%A`) is unaffected — that stays fine.