i18n-studio

i18n Studio

Purpose

i18n Studio edits Astro-style i18n string files safely: files shaped like export default { en: {...}, ru: {...} } where leaves are UI strings. It writes one string literal at a time through a ts-morph AST, so every save is a minimal one-line diff with all surrounding formatting preserved, and a running dev server hot-reloads. It also produces Claude translation candidates that preserve HTML tags and tone.

Use it instead of hand-editing .ts string files with Edit/sed: manual edits risk formatting churn, broken quoting/escaping, and desynced languages. The AST layer avoids all three.

When to use

• Filling in missing translations for a language (e.g. "translate the new hero copy to Russian", "fill the German gaps").
• Auditing coverage ("which strings are untranslated?").
• Editing UI microcopy in one or more languages.
• Getting translation candidates for a specific string.
• Opening a visual editor for a human to translate interactively ("open the translation editor").

Applies to any repo whose translations follow the export default { <lang>: {...} } convention, not one specific project.

Locate the strings directory first

The tool defaults to <cwd>/src/i18n/strings. Confirm the real location before starting (it may differ):

ls src/i18n/strings 2>/dev/null || find . -path '*/i18n/strings' -type d -not -path '*/node_modules/*' | head

Use that path as --dir below. Ensure the tool is installed once: cd ~/ai_projects/i18n-studio && npm install.

Start the server (required for the API and the UI)

Start it in the background, pointed at the target strings dir, and wait until it is reachable:

node ~/ai_projects/i18n-studio/server.mjs --dir "$PWD/src/i18n/strings" --port 4331 &
until curl -sf http://localhost:4331/api/strings >/dev/null; do sleep 0.5; done

Pass --langs en,ru,de if the corpus has languages beyond the en,ru default, and --voice "<one-line tone brief>" to steer suggestion style. Stop it with kill %1 (or the printed PID) when finished.