diff --git a/.agents/skills/freehire-search/SKILL.md b/.agents/skills/freehire-search/SKILL.md
index 22d7344b..2ac24545 100644
--- a/.agents/skills/freehire-search/SKILL.md
+++ b/.agents/skills/freehire-search/SKILL.md
@@ -191,7 +191,7 @@ dictionaries never guess). So:
   tracking (apply/save) needs a key, and this skill deliberately does not touch it:
   it is **search + detail only**.
 - `id` in search results is the freehire `public_slug` — pass it as-is to `detail`.
-- `date` is the posting date (`posted_at`); it may be `null` for undated postings.
+- `date` is the posting date as `YYYY-MM-DD` (the date part of the API's `posted_at` timestamp, the shape every portal CLI emits); it may be `null` for undated postings.
 - Facet values are controlled vocabularies. Use `/api/v1/jobs/facets` to see the
   live values (with counts) for a query before filtering.
 - The API retries 429/5xx with exponential backoff; an unreachable API exits
diff --git a/.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/src/helpers.ts b/.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/src/helpers.ts
index d658e3ad..a27a6434 100644
--- a/.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/src/helpers.ts
+++ b/.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/src/helpers.ts
@@ -113,8 +113,10 @@ export interface FreehireJob {
 
 /**
  * A search result in the portal-skill contract shape. `id` is the public_slug
- * (what `detail <slug>` consumes) and `date` is the posting date; missing values
- * are `null`, never omitted. The extra facet fields are a permitted superset.
+ * (what `detail <slug>` consumes) and `date` is the posting date as `YYYY-MM-DD`
+ * (the contract shape every portal CLI emits; the API's ISO timestamp is cut to
+ * its date part); missing values are `null`, never omitted. The extra facet
+ * fields are a permitted superset.
  *
  * `description` is the posting's full text in the format the search asked the API
  * for — the agent search endpoint hydrates it server-side, so it arrives already
@@ -150,6 +152,18 @@ export interface JobDetailResult extends JobResult {
  * from the source ATS as indexed, which can carry HTML entities and stray
  * whitespace ("Intern - Fullstack &amp; AI Innovation "), so it is decoded and trimmed.
  */
+/**
+ * The portal-contract date (`YYYY-MM-DD`) from the API's `posted_at`, which is
+ * an ISO timestamp (`2026-07-06T00:00:00Z`). Every other portal CLI emits the
+ * date part only, and `/scrape` stores it as `posted_date: "YYYY-MM-DD"`; the
+ * table and plain renderers already cut it, so only JSON consumers saw the raw
+ * timestamp. Null when absent or not a date.
+ */
+export function contractDate(value: string | null | undefined): string | null {
+  const m = /^(\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2})/.exec(value ?? "")
+  return m ? m[1] : null
+}
+
 export function toResult(j: FreehireJob): JobResult {
   return {
     id: j.public_slug,
@@ -157,7 +171,7 @@ export function toResult(j: FreehireJob): JobResult {
     company: j.company || null,
     company_slug: j.company_slug || null,
     location: j.location || null,
-    date: j.posted_at,
+    date: contractDate(j.posted_at),
     url: j.url,
     work_mode: j.work_mode || null,
     regions: j.regions,
diff --git a/.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/tests/commands.test.ts b/.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/tests/commands.test.ts
index 6edada67..a01ec9fb 100644
--- a/.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/tests/commands.test.ts
+++ b/.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/tests/commands.test.ts
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ describe("runSearch (mocked fetch)", () => {
     expect(parsed.meta).toEqual({ count: 1, page: 1, total: 42 });
     expect(parsed.results).toHaveLength(1);
     expect(parsed.results[0].id).toBe("backend-engineer-acme-ab12cd34");
-    expect(parsed.results[0].date).toBe("2026-07-06T00:00:00Z");
+    expect(parsed.results[0].date).toBe("2026-07-06");
   });
 
   test("queries the agent endpoint asking for full descriptions", async () => {
diff --git a/.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/tests/parsing.test.ts b/.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/tests/parsing.test.ts
index f4c6881a..f42a29fa 100644
--- a/.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/tests/parsing.test.ts
+++ b/.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/tests/parsing.test.ts
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 import { describe, test, expect } from "bun:test";
-import { cleanHtml, normalizeSlug, toResult, toDetail, type FreehireJob } from "../src/helpers";
+import { cleanHtml, contractDate, normalizeSlug, toResult, toDetail, type FreehireJob } from "../src/helpers";
 
 function job(overrides: Partial<FreehireJob> = {}): FreehireJob {
   return {
@@ -28,7 +28,8 @@ describe("toResult — reshape into the portal-skill contract", () => {
   test("maps public_slug -> id and posted_at -> date", () => {
     const r = toResult(job());
     expect(r.id).toBe("backend-engineer-acme-ab12cd34");
-    expect(r.date).toBe("2026-07-06T00:00:00Z");
+    // The contract shape is the date part only, like every other portal CLI.
+    expect(r.date).toBe("2026-07-06");
   });
 
   test("carries the required contract fields", () => {
@@ -118,6 +119,23 @@ describe("cleanHtml", () => {
   });
 });
 
+describe("contractDate", () => {
+  test("cuts the API's ISO timestamp to YYYY-MM-DD", () => {
+    expect(contractDate("2026-07-06T00:00:00Z")).toBe("2026-07-06");
+    expect(contractDate("2026-07-06T15:30:00+02:00")).toBe("2026-07-06");
+    expect(contractDate("2026-07-06")).toBe("2026-07-06");
+  });
+  test("is null for an absent or non-date value", () => {
+    expect(contractDate(null)).toBeNull();
+    expect(contractDate(undefined)).toBeNull();
+    expect(contractDate("")).toBeNull();
+    expect(contractDate("soon")).toBeNull();
+  });
+  test("detail carries the same shape as search", () => {
+    expect(toDetail(job()).date).toBe("2026-07-06");
+  });
+});
+
 describe("normalizeSlug", () => {
   test("accepts a bare slug", () => {
     expect(normalizeSlug("golang-zensar-2bxu6dxm")).toBe("golang-zensar-2bxu6dxm");
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index d8eb9d8a..7424b14d 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -68,6 +68,16 @@ per-file diff commands.
 
 ### Fixed
 
+- **`freehire-search` emits the contract's `YYYY-MM-DD` date instead of the API's ISO timestamp**
+  (`.agents/skills/freehire-search/cli/src/helpers.ts`, `tests/parsing.test.ts`,
+  `tests/commands.test.ts`, `SKILL.md`) - `toResult` passed `posted_at` through verbatim, so
+  search and detail JSON carried `"date": "2026-07-06T00:00:00Z"` while every other portal CLI
+  emits the date part only and `/scrape` stores it as `posted_date: "YYYY-MM-DD"`. The table
+  and plain renderers already cut the value to ten characters, so only JSON consumers - the
+  `/scrape` path - saw the raw timestamp. A `contractDate()` helper now cuts the timestamp to
+  its date part and yields `null` for an absent or non-date value; the two tests that pinned
+  the raw timestamp now expect the date and fail on master, plus three cases on the helper.
+
 - **`/rank`, `/notion-sync` and `/upskill` name `job_scraper/seen_jobs.json` by its full path**
   (follow-up to #608, `.claude/commands/rank.md`, `.claude/commands/notion-sync.md`,
   `.claude/skills/upskill/SKILL.md`, `tests/test_scrape_seen_jobs_path.py`) - #608 qualified the