Moment.js to Temporal API

[sonnystark]

Hey all!

I rummaged around to see if this had already been up for debate but I couldn't find anything. So, if that's the case, I apologies.

Since Hexo uses Moment.js for date and time handling, I was wondering if there is a plan in place to move away from it towards Temporal API in future releases? I think that would be a massive benefit and would shave off some of the bloat.

Node.js support is complete and stable. Version 22 LTS has Temporal enabled by default and in all modern browsers since 3 years Temporal is native.

Just an idea to modernize this framework a bit :)

Hope you're all having a great day!

[stevenjoezhang]

Thanks for bringing this up. I agree that moving away from Moment.js is a good long-term direction, and Temporal is likely the right eventual target.

A small compatibility clarification: native Temporal is enabled by default starting with Node.js 26, not Node.js 22. Node.js 26 is currently a Current release and will enter LTS in October 2026. Hexo currently supports Node.js >=20.19.0, so using native Temporal today would require either dropping old Node.js releases support or adding a polyfill.

There is also more migration work involved than replacing a few function calls. Moment is currently part of several Hexo interfaces:

• Warehouse schemas store moment.Moment values.
• Date helpers use Moment’s formatting tokens.
• Themes and plugins may call Moment instance methods directly.
• Existing configurations commonly use formats such as YYYY-MM-DD, which are not directly compatible with Luxon or Temporal.

Therefore, replacing Moment would probably need to be a staged, major-version change.

As an intermediate step, [hexo-front-matter#146](hexojs/hexo-front-matter#146) uses Luxon internally to interpret a timezone-less YAML timestamp in the timezone configured by Hexo. It still returns a native Date, so Luxon does not become part of the public API. This is a pragmatic solution for the Node.js versions Hexo currently supports, although it does not by itself reduce dependencies while Hexo still uses Moment.

[SukkaW]

The desired approach would be to have Moment.js drop-in replacement library that powered by Temproal API, so we don't have to migrate much, yet benefit from ECMA-262 native API.