Hi everyone! I’m having an issue with time awareness in my Vapi assistant.
I inject the current time like this in the prompt:
{{ "now" | date: "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M", "America/Los_Angeles" }}
And I define in the prompt that business hours are Monday–Friday, 7:00 AM–5:00 PM (Pacific Time) and outside that window it should not transfer calls and only collect callback info.
The issue:
➡ Sometimes it works correctly.
➡ Other times, during the exact same valid business hour window, it still responds as if it's after-hours and refuses transfer.
It’s inconsistent and I can’t identify a pattern.
Why does this happen, and what is the correct way to make the AI reliably time-aware so it respects business hour logic every time?
Thanks!