Time travel from Python

Reads take an optional point in the past. There are two ways to name one and they are not interchangeable, which is the whole difficulty.

db.kv.get("greeting", as_of=3)
db.kv.get("greeting", as_of_time="2026-09-13 06:52:20Z")

as_of is a position on the commit timeline: a per-commit counter, not a date. as_of_time is a real moment. Passing both raises rather than guessing:

db.kv.get("greeting", as_of=3, as_of_time=when)

invalid_argument.executor.as_of_conflict: as_of and as_of_time are mutually
exclusive: pass a commit timestamp or a wall-clock instant, not both

Time travel explains which clock to reach for.

Getting the numbers

History gives you both, per version:

for item in db.kv.history("greeting"):
    print(item.version, item.committed_at, item.value)

15 1789289584833015 b'goodbye'
3  1789289571668049 b'hello'

committed_at is microseconds since the epoch. to_datetime converts it, and to_micros goes the other way:

from stratadb import to_datetime

first = list(db.kv.history("greeting"))[-1]
when = to_datetime(first.committed_at)
db.kv.get("greeting", as_of_time=when)

b'hello'

Taking the instant from an entry rather than typing a literal is the habit worth forming. A literal that lands before the first commit does not return nothing; it raises HistoryUnavailableError.

What as_of_time accepts

TimeLike is int | datetime | date | str, so all of these work:

db.kv.get("k", as_of_time=datetime(2026, 9, 13, 6, 52, tzinfo=timezone.utc))
db.kv.get("k", as_of_time="2026-09-13 06:52:20Z")
db.kv.get("k", as_of_time=1789289584833015)

A datetime without a timezone is read as local time. Prefer aware ones.

It applies across the models

The same two parameters appear on reads throughout the API, not just key-value:

db.json.get("user:ada", "$.role", as_of=7)
db.vectors.query("docs", [1, 0, 0], as_of=7)
db.graphs.meta("social", as_of=7)

They also appear on counts and listings, which is what makes a consistent enumeration possible: pass the same as_of to every page and the pagination describes one instant rather than a moving target.

Where to look next

Time travel for the conceptual half, and Branches for reading the past on a fork.