Also, is there a way to return datetime objects from a query as strings instead of

{ $date: 'xxx' }

values?

You can do this in the

$project

stage using

$dateToString

e.g.

{
  $project: {
    createdAt: { $dateToString: { date: '$createdAt' } },
    updatedAt: { $dateToString: { date: '$updatedAt' } },
  }
}

Cool, thank you!