An example date format is 2016-01-25T22:15:43Z. Also note that you don't have to manually configure and sign the requests yourself, you can simply use CloudKit JS with Node.js. A sample script has been published at https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/samplecode/CloudAtla...
I'd kill for a working code sample, in any language. I tried looking at the JS source, but it's minified and thus quite hard to read.