annex.genmetadata is off by default, which will potentially lose you a lot of timestamp metadata if you don't pay attention. It should be on by default.
### What steps will reproduce the problem?
Add a file to a fresh annex, observe it has no metadata.
### What version of git-annex are you using? On what operating system?
6.20180227 on Debian
### Have you had any luck using git-annex before? (Sometimes we get tired of reading bug reports all day and a lil' positive end note does wonders)
Yes I love it! (Except for its spotty timestamp support)