Backed by mandō

Every file
deserves a
moment.

Imprint is the world's most sophisticated file creation and timestamp management platform. Create files in an instant. Update access and modification times with surgical precision. Leave your mark on every filesystem you touch.

See the demo
M K R J +
14,200+ engineers creating files the right way
imprint — session
$
# file created: report.md
$ imprint -m config.yaml
# modification time updated
$ imprint -d "next Thursday" deploy.sh
# timestamp set to next Thursday
$ _
✦ deploy.sh created ⟳ config.yaml mtime updated ✦ README.md created ⟳ .env.production atime updated ✦ schema.prisma created ⟳ Makefile mtime synced from reference ✦ index.ts created ⟳ tsconfig.json timestamp set to 2025-12-01 ✦ Dockerfile created ⟳ package.json atime refreshed ✦ deploy.sh created ⟳ config.yaml mtime updated ✦ README.md created ⟳ .env.production atime updated ✦ schema.prisma created ⟳ Makefile mtime synced from reference

Features

Every timestamp flag.
One unified platform.

Imprint exposes the full power of filesystem temporal metadata — access times, modification times, custom date strings, reference-based sync, and symlink-native workflows — through a single, opinionated interface.

✦

Instant File Creation

Files that don't exist are created empty, instantly. No boilerplate. No ceremony. Just run Imprint and the file is there. The default behavior that built a thousand CI pipelines.

⏱

Access Time Control -a

Surgically update only the access time without disturbing the modification timestamp. Perfect for audit-sensitive environments where atime precision is non-negotiable.

✏️

Modification Time Control -m

Update only the modification time. Leave the access time untouched. The granularity your build system demands, delivered with zero overhead.

🛡

No-Create Mode -c

With --no-create, Imprint will never create a new file. Only update timestamps on files that already exist. Defensive, safe, and production-ready by default.

📅

Human Date Parsing -d

Pass human-readable date strings like "next Thursday" or "2025-03-15 14:30:00" and Imprint parses them correctly. Natural language meets filesystem precision.

🔗

Reference Sync -r

Copy timestamps from a reference file to your target. Align deployment artifacts, synchronize build outputs, and mirror temporal metadata across your entire tree.

🕐

Precise Timestamps -t

Set timestamps to the exact second using [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss] format. When human parsing isn't precise enough, go direct. No ambiguity.

🔀

Symlink-Native -h

With --no-dereference, Imprint modifies the symbolic link itself instead of the referenced file. Full symlink-aware timestamp management on supported systems.

How It Works

Three steps to
temporal control.

01

Target your file

Pass one or more file paths to Imprint. Files that don't exist are created empty. Files that do exist are queued for timestamp updates. Batch operations are first-class.

02

Configure your intent

Choose your mode: access time only (-a), modification time only (-m), or both. Set a specific date with -d, sync from a reference with -r, or just update to now.

03

Imprint

Execute. Timestamps are written atomically. Files are created instantly. Your CI/CD pipeline, build system, or deployment workflow continues without a hitch.

0
Files created per day
0
Timestamp accuracy rate
0
Avg. execution latency
0
Enterprise deployments

Case Study

How Nextera reduced build invalidation by 73% with Imprint

Nextera's CI pipeline was rebuilding 40+ micro-services on every commit because artifact timestamps weren't aligned. Modification times drifted across build nodes, triggering unnecessary invalidation cascades.

By integrating Imprint's reference sync (-r) across their build fleet, Nextera aligned all artifact timestamps to a single source of truth. Combined with no-create mode (-c) for safety, they eliminated phantom rebuilds entirely.

"We went from 47-minute builds to 12 minutes overnight. Imprint's -r flag is basically free money."
— Priya Okonkwo, Platform Lead at Nextera

Pricing

Timestamp precision at every scale.

Start free. Scale when you're ready.

Starter
$0/mo
  • Instant file creation
  • Update access + modification times
  • Up to 1,000 operations/day
  • Community support
Most Popular
Pro
$29/mo
  • Everything in Starter
  • Access time isolation (-a)
  • Modification time isolation (-m)
  • Human date parsing (-d)
  • No-create safety mode (-c)
  • Unlimited operations
  • Priority support
Enterprise
$149/mo
  • Everything in Pro
  • Reference file sync (-r)
  • Precise timestamp format (-t)
  • Symlink-native mode (-h)
  • --time=WORD selector
  • SAML SSO + audit logs
  • Dedicated success manager
Fleet
Custom
  • Everything in Enterprise
  • Multi-cluster orchestration
  • Batch timestamp alignment
  • Custom integrations + SLA
  • On-prem deployment option
  • 24/7 white-glove support

Team

Built by filesystem obsessives.

Simone Nakamura

Simone Nakamura

Co-founder & CEO

Ex-Vercel platform eng. Spent 3 years debugging timestamp drift in distributed build systems. Built Imprint to make sure no one else has to.

Diego Suárez

Diego Suárez

Co-founder & CTO

Former kernel contributor. Wrote patches for the utimensat syscall. Knows more about inode timestamps than anyone alive.

Mila Lindt

Mila Lindt

Co-founder & Head of Product

Ex-Stripe, ex-Figma. Believes every developer tool should feel like magic. Leads Imprint's product vision with ruthless taste.

Testimonials

Trusted by teams that ship.

★★★★★

"We replaced a 200-line Bash script with a single Imprint command. The -r flag alone saved us 30 hours a month in build pipeline debugging."

James Choi
James Choi Staff SRE, Contour Systems
★★★★★

"Imprint's no-create mode is a game-changer for production scripts. We run it in cron jobs across 400 nodes and have never accidentally created a file."

Marcus Lindqvist
Marcus Lindqvist DevOps Lead, Phantom Labs
★★★★★

"The human date parsing is genuinely incredible. I passed in 'last Friday at noon' and it just worked. No strftime formatting. No epoch math. Just vibes."

Tomás Weaver
Tomás Weaver Founding Engineer, Gridline
★★★★★

"We migrated our entire symlink management strategy to Imprint's -h flag. It handles dereferencing exactly the way we need — which is to say, it doesn't."

Anton Lindstrom
Anton Lindstrom Principal Eng, Basalt

Demo

See Imprint in action.

Real commands. Real filesystem output.

imprint — interactive demo
$ imprint newfile.txt
# newfile.txt created (0 bytes)
$ ls -l newfile.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 0 Mar 15 09:42 newfile.txt
$ imprint -a readme.md
# access time updated, modification time unchanged
$ imprint -m -d "next Thursday" config.yaml
# modification time set to Thu Mar 20 00:00:00
$ imprint -r reference.lock app.js server.js utils.js
# timestamps synced from reference.lock → 3 files
$ imprint -c nonexistent.tmp
# nonexistent.tmp: no file created (--no-create)
$ imprint -t 202503151430.00 deploy.sh
# timestamp set to 2025-03-15 14:30:00
$ imprint -h symlink.conf
# symlink itself updated (not dereferenced)

FAQ

Questions? Answered.

By default, Imprint creates an empty file with the current timestamp. If you pass -c or --no-create, the file will not be created — Imprint silently skips it. Use -h for symlink-specific behavior.
Yes. Use -a to update only the access time and -m to update only the modification time. Without either flag, Imprint updates both. You can also use --time=WORD to specify which time to change: access, atime, use for access time; modify, mtime for modification time.
The -d / --date=STRING option supports a rich, mostly free-format human-readable date string syntax — including "Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:21:42 -0800", "2004-02-29 16:21:42", and even relative expressions like "next Thursday". For exact timestamps, use -t [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss] format.
The -r / --reference=FILE flag instructs Imprint to copy the timestamps from a reference file to your target file(s). Both access and modification times are synced (unless you further constrain with -a or -m). This is ideal for aligning build artifacts, deployment outputs, or any workflow that requires temporal consistency.
By default, Imprint affects the file a symlink points to. Use -h / --no-dereference to modify the symbolic link itself. This is only useful on systems that support changing the timestamps of a symlink directly.

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