[tonycpsu]

Closes #1390.

Adds an optional --timestamp to send (and a timestamp param over JSON-RPC), so the caller can choose the message timestamp instead of having signal-cli generate one. Signal clients identify a message by its author and timestamp, so this lets a caller know the timestamp before the send returns, or reuse the timestamp of an earlier attempt.

Behaviour

• The value is milliseconds since the epoch, and must be positive and strictly in the past. A supplied timestamp does not update the last generated timestamp (lastMessageTimestamp), so a value equal to the current time could be the same as the one generated for a concurrent send.
• It is rejected (not ignored) together with --edit-timestamp or --end-session, and over D-Bus, whose interface has no field for it. In the library, Message gets an optional timestamp, and sendEditMessage rejects a message that has one.
• The returned timestamp is the supplied one.
• Without the option, nothing changes: the timestamp is generated as before.
• Only send gets the option. Other sending commands (reactions, remote delete, polls, pins, stories, …) keep generating their own timestamp.

Usage

signal-cli -a ACCOUNT send -m "hello" --timestamp 1760000000000 +491234567890

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"send","params":{"recipient":["+491234567890"],"message":"hello","timestamp":1760000000000},"id":1}

Tests

• SendCommandParsingTest (12 new tests): the value reaching the sent Message from the CLI and from JSON-RPC (as Long and Integer), omitted value unchanged, zero, negative, future and non-integer values rejected, the --edit-timestamp / --end-session rejections, and the bounds of parseMessageTimestamp (null, just before now, equal to now, BigInteger / Double / String).
• ./gradlew build passes (:test 72 tests, :libsignal-cli:test 171 tests, 0 failures).

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https://claude.ai/code/session_014BxcotxHKb9ZNJkezZgmnQ