SurfSense is an open-source desktop application that uses an AI agent to research, transform, and edit documents while keeping their index on the user's machine. It is intended for people working with documents they cannot upload, with a choice of local or remote models and no account required.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to MODSetter/SurfSense. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MODSetter/SurfSense/main/.agents/skills/translate/SKILL.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/MODSetter/SurfSenseWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/modsetter/surfsense/translate)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/modsetter/surfsense/translate"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/modsetter/surfsense/translate/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/modsetter/surfsense/translate"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/modsetter/surfsense/translate.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00066 | $0.02448 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00026 | $0.00979 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00013 | $0.00490 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00007 | $0.00245 |
Grade A, and why
translate scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 89 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Translate
The desktop app's interface text lives in surfsense_local/frontend/translations/, one ICU MessageFormat file per language. English is the source; every other language in LOCALES is translated from it. How it works: docs/architecture/localization.md.
| File | Holds |
|---|---|
translations/en.json |
generated by formatjs extract from every defaultMessage in the code; never edited by hand |
translations/<code>.json (ja, de, …) |
{"key": "ICU string"}, flat, sorted, two-space indent, written with the steps below |
glossary.md |
terms that stay English, and the chosen term per language |
Only fixed text in the app's code is translated. Never user content, model output, model names or descriptions, file paths, or logs.
Adding English
- Key:
<feature>_<surface>_<purpose>, snake_case.<feature>is a folder underfrontend/src/features/, orappfor the shell.<purpose>is one of_title,_body,_label,_placeholder,_button,_tooltip,_empty,_error,_toast,_aria,_link,_status. - Name the meaning, not the words:
sources_delete_confirm_title, notare_you_sure. - A backend error code maps to
<feature>_error_<code>. - One key per place. Never reuse another feature's "Cancel"; never add a
commonkey. - A whole sentence per value. No joining keys, no leading or trailing space. A link that is an action becomes its own key and its own element.
- Visible apostrophes are
’, never': ICU uses'as its escape character. - Pass numbers raw, never preformatted text, and format them in the message with an ICU skeleton:
{size, number, ::unit/gigabyte .#},{percent, number, ::percent}(a fraction),{downloads, number, ::compact-short}. ICU cannot pick a unit, so megabytes and gigabytes are two messages. - A count or position is
{count, number}, never a plain{count}, which prints raw digits. Ids and HTTP status codes stay plain: they are not amounts. - A date goes in as a
Date, formatted in the message:{date, date, ::yyyyMMMd}. - Named placeholders only:
{name},{count}. Plurals are ICU:{count, plural, one {# document} other {# documents}}; FormatJS prints#with the language's digit grouping. Never(s). - Write the English in the call, as FormatJS recommends:
intl.formatMessage({ id: "sources_list_empty", defaultMessage: "No sources yet" }), orintl.formatMessage({ id, defaultMessage }, { name })with values. The id is literal and explicit. Importintlfrom@/i18n/intl. Then runpnpm translationsinsurfsense_local/frontend(or onlypnpm translations:extract), which regeneratesen.json; commit it with the code. - A styled part of a sentence (a bold name, an accent) is an ICU tag, FormatJS's native rich text:
"Using <b>{name}</b> via {source}", rendered withintl.formatMessage({ id, defaultMessage }, { b: (chunks) => <span …>{chunks}</span> }). An element can also be a value:{ time: <RelativeTime … /> }. - Outside a message, numbers, dates, relative times, lists and language names go through
intl.formatNumber,formatDate,formatRelativeTime,formatList,formatDisplayName, never a bareIntl.*,toLocale*or a raw{count}in JSX.
What ships with it
1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 1mo ago First seen · 89 lines · 66 tokens per session scan A b6c0a210d6f2
translate is a skill published in the GitHub repository MODSetter/SurfSense (16,789 stars, last pushed today), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 66 tokens to every session and 2,448 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-27.
translate compared with skills from other repositories
| Mod | Type | Stars | Last push | Licence | Scan | Tokens | Works with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| translateMODSetter/SurfSense | Skill | 17k | today | Apache-2.0 | A | 66 | Claude Code, Codex |
| first-readerShubhamsaboo/awesome-llm-apps | Skill | 144k | yesterday | Apache-2.0 | A | 174 | Claude Code, Codex |
| mcp-apps-builderShubhamsaboo/awesome-llm-apps | Skill | 144k | yesterday | Apache-2.0 | A | 139 | Claude Code, Codex |
| project-graveyardShubhamsaboo/awesome-llm-apps | Skill | 144k | yesterday | Apache-2.0 | A | 127 | Claude Code, Codex |
| commit-archaeologistShubhamsaboo/awesome-llm-apps | Skill | 144k | yesterday | Apache-2.0 | A | 82 | Claude Code, Codex |
| dependency-doctorShubhamsaboo/awesome-llm-apps | Skill | 144k | yesterday | Apache-2.0 | A | 115 | Claude Code, Codex |
| scope-creep-detectorShubhamsaboo/awesome-llm-apps | Skill | 144k | yesterday | Apache-2.0 | A | 98 | Claude Code, Codex |