# Using Current Date and Time In VS Code Snippets

> Learn how to use current date and time in VS Code Snippets.

Source: https://curiouslychase.com/posts/using-current-date-and-time-in-vs-code-snippets/

Previously when generating new blog articles (in[VS Code](https://curiouslychase.com/posts/vs-code/), now I generate articles in [Obsidian](https://curiouslychase.com/tools/obsidian/)), adding dates to [Markdown](https://curiouslychase.com/posts/markdown/) frontmatter was a manual step that required me to:

- Determine the date
- Convert what I read into the date format I use for frontmatter

As of [VS Code release 1.20](https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_20#_more-snippet-variables), Snippets have access to the current date and time with one of the following variables:

- `CURRENT_YEAR`
- `CURRENT_YEAR_SHORT`
- `CURRENT_MONTH`
- `CURRENT_DATE`
- `CURRENT_HOUR`
- `CURRENT_MINUTE`
- `CURRENT_SECOND`

Now if I want a frontmatter "date" for Markdown for the current year, month and day (`YYYY-MM-DD`), I can add the following to my snippet:

```yaml
date: "\"$CURRENT_YEAR-$CURRENT_MONTH-$CURRENT_DATE\""
```

Using the published date of this post, the expanded snippet produces:

```yaml
date: "2018-07-24"
```

![Markdown snippet with current date and time automatically inserted](/img/vscode-current-date-time-in-snippets.gif)