Introduction

A team we work with couldn’t figure out why “inactive” users were still being billed. After hours of digging, they realized their tables didn’t track when records were updated. No updated_at, no clues, no clean fix.

Hi, I’m Jonathan, founder of ChartDB. We help developers understand and clean up their database schemas in a few clicks. In this post, I’ll walk you through why timestamps are so important, how to add them quickly and correctly, and how ChartDB’s AI can save you hours doing it.

What Are Timestamps?

Timestamps are the quiet heroes of every well-designed database. They’re columns like created_at, updated_at, and deleted_at that record when a row was added, changed, or softly removed.

You’ll usually see something like:

• created_at TIMESTAMP DEFAULT now()

• updated_at TIMESTAMP DEFAULT now() ON UPDATE now()

• deleted_at TIMESTAMP NULL

  

They show up in all major databases, from Postgres and MySQL to SQLite. And while they may seem like a small detail, they unlock a whole world of clarity and control.

Why Timestamps Matter So Much

Here’s how a few simple columns can completely change how you build, debug, and scale a system:

Auditing and incident reviews
Need to know who changed a permission or when a row was created? Timestamps give you a full paper trail.

Conflict resolution
If two systems write to the same row, updated_at lets you decide which version is newer.

Caching and ETags
APIs can skip sending fresh data if the timestamp hasn’t changed, which makes your app feel faster.

Analytics and cohorts
Want to track who signed up last month or replay user activity? You need proper timestamps to do it right.

Backfills and replays
They help you run jobs only on recent data, instead of processing everything over and over.

Soft deletes
Instead of wiping data, you mark it with deleted_at and keep the full history.

Debugging and performance
When writes slow down or queries act weird, timestamps help you trace what happened and when.

How to Add Timestamps Automatically with ChartDB

If you’re adding timestamps to just one table, that’s easy. But if you’ve got 40 or 80 or 200 tables across different domains, it gets old fast. That’s why we added this to the ChartDB AI Agent.

Here’s how it works:

1. Open your schema in ChartDB - you can import directly from your database or upload a dump.

2. Click the AI Agent button in the top-right corner of the screen.

3. Select "Add timestamps" from the list of smart actions.

4. The AI will scan every table, detect what’s missing, and suggest adding created_at, updated_at, and optionally deleted_at.

5. You can review everything in the visual editor before confirming.

6. Once it looks good, hit Apply and your schema is updated with clean, consistent timestamp fields.

🎥 Want to see this in action?
Watch the YouTube demo where I use ChartDB’s AI agent to add soft deletes and timestamps in minutes:

Conclusion

Timestamps make your data smarter. They help you debug, track changes, and answer questions you didn’t know you’d need to ask.

In this post, we looked at why they matter so much, how to use them well, and how to add them automatically using ChartDB’s AI Agent.

If you want to clean up your schema and make sure you never miss a timestamp again, give ChartDB a try. You can import your schema and run the exact flow in just a few minutes.

Additional Resources

Here are some more tutorials that can help you design a better & effective ERD.

1. How To Categorize Tables in Your ERDs with AI

2. What are Database Indexes & How To Find Them using ChartDB’s AI Agent

3. Quickly Find Missing Foreign Keys using ChartDB’s AI Agent