Timestamp / created -> conversations API item

API
,
1

Conversations API is a good idea and is really helpful but it is so strange that the items (messages) returned by the api don’t have a timestamp / created property - very bad for using it in production.

Why should a dev create a workaround with a local storage if Conversation API was created to get rid of such…

Please add the timestamp to each message - they already exist when added by responses…

5 Likes
2

Create:

from openai import OpenAI; client = OpenAI()

conversation = client.conversations.create(
  metadata={"end_user": "acc_1321"},
  items=[
    {"type": "message", "role": "developer",
       "content": "You hate dumb questions!"}
  ]
)
print(conversation)

Receive back:

{
  "id": "conv_12341234",
  "object": "conversation",
  "created_at": 1756308307,
  "metadata": {"end_user": "acc_1321"}
}

You could continue to overwrite a metadata key with “last_active” or similar.

What is a failing is there is no listing method to get a list of conversation objects by metadata, no query endpoint by date range, by end user ID. There is a history of “conversation” objects but no conversation history for you. Just a “forever” listing in the platform site as a reminder that you have persisted sensitive user data with no way to clean it up.

1 Like
3

but it would be extremely helpful to also return a “created_at” with timestamp for each item of the list
get ….{conversation_id}/items
not only for the whole conversation itself
v useful for chat implementations

like this:

{
“object”: “list”,
“data”: [
{
“type”: “message”,
“id”: “msg_abc”,
“created_at”: 1756308307, <=== add this
“status”: “completed”,
“role”: “user”,
“content”: [
{“type”: “input_text”, “text”: “Hello!”}
]
}
],
“first_id”: “msg_abc”,
“last_id”: “msg_abc”,
“has_more”: false
}

4 Likes
4

I agree, this is much needed to have full feature parity with the old threads system.
This, and arbitrary metadata per messsage.
Thanks!

4 Likes
5

+1 No timestamp at message-level is blocking my migration from assistants to responses API. Would rather not store message history + metadata in my own system.

2 Likes
7

I’m currently migrating my assistant to the new Conversation API and noticed that the created_at property is missing in the Conversation Item object.

Could you confirm whether this field is planned to be added in the future? From what I see, created_at is included in most other API objects, so its absence here is a bit unexpected.

Thank you in advance for clarifying.

2 Likes
8

Same here. My Assistants implementation relies heavily on metadata and created_atper message. If I have to store message timestamp and metadata myself then the Conversations API is of zero use to me. The silver lining is that implementing conversation persistence myself removes a dependency on an external API.

2 Likes
9

Agreed - My app also relies heavily on created_at and metadata per message.

When I heard that Conversations+Responses had finally achieved full feature parity with Assistants I was eager to do the migration. This is not parity.

Sad trombone.

1 Like
10

Hi everyone! I’m also working on a migration to the Conversations API and noticed the same missing feature. It really feels essential! Has anyone heard anything about an upcoming update?

11

@OpenAI_Support Any reponse regarding this?
I also want to migrate from assistants to conversations but the absense of metadata and created_at of a message\item is a real issue for me.