Quick start

The default init template (ui-markdown) enables UI extraction and translation only. The ui-docusaurus, ui-starlight, ui-vitepress, ui-nextra, and ui-fumadocs templates enable document translation (translate-docs); ui-vitepress also scaffolds docsOutput.vitepressThemeCatalog for VitePress theme strings, ui-nextra scaffolds docs[].nextraDictionaryPath for the Nextra theme dictionary (sidebar _meta.ts is collected automatically), and ui-fumadocs scaffolds docsOutput.fumadocsUiCatalog for Fumadocs UI overrides (sidebar meta.json is collected automatically). The ui-astro-website template scaffolds UI extraction for plain Astro apps (including .astro files); add a docs[] block (see Astro website pages (parse-and-replace)) when you also want translate-docs for .astro page HTML. The reference examples/astro-website uses both pipelines. Use sync when you want one command that runs extract, UI translation, optional SVG file translation, and documentation translation according to your config.

Runnable examples

Nine runnable projects and fixtures live under examples/. See the Examples catalog (console app, Next.js + Docusaurus, Astro website, Astro Starlight docs, VitePress docs, Nextra docs, Fumadocs docs, multi-provider comparison, markdown stress test).

Run one example standalone (without cloning the whole monorepo):

npx degit wsj-br/ai-i18n-tools/examples/console-app console-app
cd console-app
pnpm install
pnpm run i18n:sync    # example scripts call the locally installed CLI

Replace console-app with any example folder name. Each example declares "ai-i18n-tools": "^1.7.2" and installs the CLI from npm. Per-example READMEs include the same snippet with the folder name filled in.

From the full ai-i18n-tools repository — if you cloned the whole repo (not just one example folder with degit):

pnpm install          # repository root
pnpm run build        # after changing CLI source
cd examples/console-app
pnpm run i18n:sync    # preferred — uses the workspace-linked CLI
# or: ai-i18n-tools sync   # after PATH setup — see Using the CLI

The workspace overrides entry (ai-i18n-tools: workspace:*) links workspace examples to your local checkout automatically. Standalone fixtures (multi-provider, test-markdown) are not workspace packages — from their folder use node ../../bin/ai-i18n-tools.mjs …. To run the CLI from the repository root (this package's own docs/i18n), use pnpm i18n:sync or node bin/ai-i18n-tools.mjs … — see Installation — Cloned monorepo and the Development Guide.

Provider and API key (required for translation)

Every command that calls an LLM — translate-ui, translate-docs, translate-json, translate-svg, and sync — needs both:

1. At least one provider in ai-i18n-tools.config.json: a providers.<name> block with translationModels, and a top-level provider key when more than one provider is configured. init scaffolds a default provider block (openrouter unless you pass -P <provider>); switch presets, add providers, or tune model lists — see LLM providers and models.
2. The matching API key in your environment or a project-root .env file. Each built-in preset reads a named env var from the preset table (for example OPENROUTER_API_KEY for the default, or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY when you scaffold with -P anthropic); Ollama is the exception — it uses a local endpoint and needs no key. See Installation — set your provider API key.

extract, status, and other commands that do not call the LLM do not need a provider or API key.

Core CLI commands

Run from your project root after installing ai-i18n-tools and configuring your shell for the bare command. Examples below use ai-i18n-tools directly.

# Set the API key for your active provider (see preset table; skip for local Ollama)
# Default init uses openrouter:
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-your-key-here
# Or scaffold another preset at init, e.g. anthropic:
# export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-your-key-here

# UI strings (default template enables extract + translate-ui)
ai-i18n-tools init [-P <provider>]    # default: openrouter
ai-i18n-tools init -P anthropic
ai-i18n-tools extract
ai-i18n-tools translate-ui

# Documents (Docusaurus-oriented template)
ai-i18n-tools init -t ui-docusaurus [-P <provider>]
ai-i18n-tools init -t ui-docusaurus -P openai
# Astro Starlight docs: ai-i18n-tools init -t ui-starlight [-P <provider>]
# VitePress docs: ai-i18n-tools init -t ui-vitepress [-P <provider>]
# Nextra docs: ai-i18n-tools init -t ui-nextra [-P <provider>]
# Fumadocs docs: ai-i18n-tools init -t ui-fumadocs [-P <provider>]
# Plain Astro website UI: ai-i18n-tools init -t ui-astro-website [-P <provider>]
ai-i18n-tools translate-docs

# JSON (no t() in source)
ai-i18n-tools init -t ui-json-bundles [-P <provider>]
ai-i18n-tools translate-json

# Combined: extract UI strings, then translate UI + SVG + docs + json[] (per config features)
ai-i18n-tools sync

# Translation status (UI strings per locale; markdown per file × locale in chunked tables)
ai-i18n-tools status
# ai-i18n-tools status --max-columns 12   # wider tables, fewer chunks

Recommended package.json scripts

With the package installed locally, package.json scripts resolve ai-i18n-tools from node_modules/.bin without extra shell setup. For interactive shells, configure PATH first — see Using the CLI.

Prefer sync for anything that used to be “run translate-ui, then translate-svg, then translate-docs, then translate-json”: ai-i18n-tools sync runs extract (when enabled), translate-ui, optional translate-svg, translate-docs, then optional translate-json—in the right order and with shared flags—according to your config. Chaining those steps by hand is easy to get wrong (order, extract, locale flags). Use i18n:translate:ui, i18n:translate:svg, i18n:translate:docs, and i18n:translate:json only when you need a single step in isolation.

{
  "i18n:extract": "ai-i18n-tools extract",
  "i18n:sync": "ai-i18n-tools sync",
  "i18n:translate:ui": "ai-i18n-tools translate-ui",
  "i18n:translate:svg": "ai-i18n-tools translate-svg",
  "i18n:translate:docs": "ai-i18n-tools translate-docs",
  "i18n:translate:json": "ai-i18n-tools translate-json",
  "i18n:status": "ai-i18n-tools status",
  "i18n:statistics": "ai-i18n-tools statistics",
  "i18n:dashboard": "ai-i18n-tools dashboard",
  "i18n:cleanup": "ai-i18n-tools cleanup"
}

Tip: Pass -L <code> or set AI_I18N_LANG if you want CLI output and the dashboard in another language — see Tool UI language.

Combined sync

Enable all features in a single config to run UI strings and documents together:

Example combined UI + docs config

{
  "sourceLocale": "en-GB",
  "targetLocales": ["de", "fr", "es", "pt-BR", "ja", "ko", "zh-Hans"],
  "features": {
    "translateUIStrings": true,
    "translateDocs": true,
    "translateSVG": false
  },
  "glossary": {
    "uiGlossary": "src/locales/strings.json",
    "userGlossary": "glossary-user.csv"
  },
  "ui": {
    "sourceRoots": ["src/"],
    "stringsJson": "src/locales/strings.json",
    "flatOutputDir": "src/locales/"
  },
  "cacheDir": ".translation-cache",
  "docs": [
    {
      "contentPaths": ["docs/"],
      "outputDir": "i18n/",
      "docsOutput": { "style": "flat" }
    }
  ]
}

glossary.uiGlossary points document translation at the same strings.json catalog as the UI so terminology stays consistent; glossary.userGlossary adds CSV overrides for product terms.

Run ai-i18n-tools sync to run one pipeline: when features.translateUIStrings is enabled, extract then translate UI strings; optional translate SVG (features.translateSVG + svg block); translate documentation (docs[] as configured); then optional translate-json (features.translateJson + json[]). Skip parts with --no-ui, --no-svg, --no-docs, or --no-json. The docs and json[] steps accept --dry-run, -p / --path, --force, and --force-update (docs-only flags are ignored when --no-docs; JSON uses the same cache flags when --no-json is not set).

Use docs[].targetLocales on a block to translate that block’s files to a smaller subset than the UI (effective documentation locales are the union across blocks):

{
  "targetLocales": ["de", "fr", "es", "pt-BR", "ja", "ko", "zh-Hans"],
  "docs": [
    {
      "contentPaths": ["docs/"],
      "outputDir": "i18n/",
      "targetLocales": ["de", "fr", "es"]
    }
  ]
}

Mixed documentation config (docsOutput.style = "docusaurus" + "flat")

You can combine multiple documentation pipelines in the same config by adding more than one entry in docs. This is a common setup when a project has a Docusaurus site (docsOutput.style = "docusaurus") plus root-level markdown files (for example, a repository README with docsOutput.style = "flat") that should be translated with locale-suffixed filenames.

Example mixed Docusaurus + flat README config

{
  "sourceLocale": "en-GB",
  "targetLocales": ["ar", "es", "fr", "de", "pt-BR"],
  "features": {
    "translateUIStrings": true,
    "translateDocs": true
  },
  "ui": {
    "sourceRoots": ["src/"],
    "stringsJson": "locales/strings.json",
    "flatOutputDir": "public/locales/"
  },
  "cacheDir": ".translation-cache",
  "docs": [
    {
      "description": "Docusaurus site content (markdown)",
      "contentPaths": ["docs-site/docs/"],
      "outputDir": "docs-site/i18n",
      "docusaurusCatalogDir": "docs-site/i18n/en",
      "addFrontmatter": true,
      "docsOutput": {
        "style": "docusaurus",
        "docsRoot": "docs-site/docs"
      }
    },
    {
      "description": "Root README with docsOutput.style flat",
      "contentPaths": ["README.md"],
      "outputDir": "translated-docs",
      "addFrontmatter": false,
      "docsOutput": {
        "style": "flat",
        "postProcessing": {
          "languageListBlock": {
            "start": "<small id=\"lang-list\">",
            "end": "</small>",
            "separator": " · ",
            "label": "local"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

How this runs with ai-i18n-tools sync:

• UI strings are extracted/translated from src/ into public/locales/.
• The first docs block translates markdown from docs-site/docs/ into docs-site/i18n/<locale>/docusaurus-plugin-content-docs/current/ (localised documentation pages).
• With docs[].docusaurusCatalogDir set and features.translateDocs enabled, that same block also translates Docusaurus shell JSON under docs-site/i18n/en/ into each target locale folder — navbar, footer, and theme/plugin catalogues, not MDX body copy.
• The second docs block translates README.md into locale-suffixed files under translated-docs/ (docsOutput.style = "flat").
• All docs blocks share cacheDir, so unchanged segments are reused across runs to reduce API calls and cost.