startedat

Startedat is a field name or identifier used to represent the starting time of an event, task, or object in data models, databases, logs, or APIs. It denotes when something began and is commonly stored as a timestamp or datetime value. The exact spelling varies by project or language, with started_at (snake_case), startedAt (camelCase), and, less commonly, startedat (concatenated) appearing in different systems. The choice of form typically reflects the surrounding naming conventions of a codebase or data store.

In practice, startedat is usually implemented as a timestamp with time zone or a equivalent datetime type. In SQL databases, it may be defined as TIMESTAMP or TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE, often indexed to support range queries and ordering. In application code, it may be represented as a Date or DateTime object, or as an ISO 8601 string in JSON APIs. It is commonly used alongside corresponding end times, such as finishedat or completed_at, to measure durations or track lifecycles.

Common use cases include logging the moment a job starts, marking the initiation of user sessions, and recording the start of processes in scheduling systems. Typical queries filter or aggregate by startedat to analyze activity windows or compute elapsed times.

Best practices favor consistent naming across the project, storing times in UTC, and documenting the field’s semantics. Be mindful of time zone handling and null values when a process has not started yet.