Translation Skill

Translate new entries in XLF translation files by finding

state="new"

targets, locating source context, and proposing translations for review.

Workflow

Step 1: Find Changed Translation Files

Run these commands to find changed translation files:

git

diff

--name-only

|

grep

-E

'messages.[a-z]{2}.xlf$'

git

diff

--cached

--name-only

|

grep

-E

'messages.[a-z]{2}.xlf$'

Combine results and deduplicate. If no changed translation files found, inform the user.

Step 2: Extract New Translations

For each changed

.xlf

file:

Read the file content

Parse to find all

elements

Filter for those containing

Extract for each:

id

attribute (translation ID)

content (English text)

content (current translation, may be empty or placeholder)

Any placeholder elements (

)

Step 3: Find Source Context

For each translation ID, search for its usage in the codebase:

TypeScript files

(

$localize

strings):

grep

-r

"@@{ID}:"

--include

=

"*.ts"

apps/ libs/

HTML files

(

i18n

attributes):

grep

-r

"@@{ID}

\"

"

--include

=

"*.html"

apps/ libs/

Read the surrounding code (5-10 lines) to understand context.

Step 4: Generate & Review Translations

For each

state="new"

entry, present to the user:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Translation ID:

File:

Target Language:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Source (English):

{source_text}

Context:

{file_path}:{line_number}

{code_snippet}

Proposed Translation:

{proposed_translation}

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Wait for user confirmation

before proceeding. Options:

Accept the proposed translation

Provide an alternative translation

Skip this entry

Step 5: Apply Approved Translations

For approved translations, update the XLF file:

Replace the

element content with the approved translation

Change

state="new"

to

state="ai"

Before:

<

trans-unit

id

=

"

myTranslationId

"

datatype

=

"

html

"

>

<

source

>

English text

</

source

>

<

target

state

=

"

new

"

>

Old or empty translation

</

target

>

</

trans-unit

>

After:

<

trans-unit

id

=

"

myTranslationId

"

datatype

=

"

html

"

>

<

source

>

English text

</

source

>

<

target

state

=

"

ai

"

>

Translated text

</

target

>

</

trans-unit

>

Language Detection

Identify the target language from the filename pattern:

Filename Pattern

Language

Native Name

messages.de.xlf

German

Deutsch

messages.fr.xlf

French

Francais

messages.es.xlf

Spanish

Espanol

messages.hu.xlf

Hungarian

Magyar

Placeholder Handling

Critical

Preserve all XML placeholder elements exactly as they appear in the source. These include:

Element

Purpose

Example

Angular interpolations

{{count}}

Multiple interpolations

Second, third interpolation

Named placeholders

ICU expressions

Multiple placeholders

Additional placeholders

Line breaks

Opening HTML tags

Closing HTML tags

Bold text start

Bold text end

Example with placeholders:

<

source

>

Hello

<

x

id

=

"

INTERPOLATION

"

equiv-text

=

"

{{name}}

"

/>

, you have

<

x

id

=

"

INTERPOLATION_1

"

equiv-text

=

"

{{count}}

"

/>

messages.

</

source

>

<

target

state

=

"

ai

"

>

Hallo

<

x

id

=

"

INTERPOLATION

"

equiv-text

=

"

{{name}}

"

/>

, Sie haben

<

x

id

=

"

INTERPOLATION_1

"

equiv-text

=

"

{{count}}

"

/>

Nachrichten.

</

target

>

Translation Guidelines

Match existing tone

Review other translations in the file to maintain consistent style

Preserve placeholders

Copy placeholder elements exactly, only translate surrounding text

Consider context

Use the code context to understand how the text is used

Domain terminology

Use standard terms for:

Mobility/transport: commute, emissions, CO2, modal split

UI elements: buttons, labels, tooltips

Business terms: audit, score, analysis

Formal vs informal

German typically uses formal "Sie" form in business software Common Translation Patterns German (de) "Save" → "Speichern" "Cancel" → "Abbrechen" "Loading..." → "Wird geladen..." "Error" → "Fehler" "Success" → "Erfolgreich" French (fr) "Save" → "Enregistrer" "Cancel" → "Annuler" "Loading..." → "Chargement..." "Error" → "Erreur" "Success" → "Succes" Spanish (es) "Save" → "Guardar" "Cancel" → "Cancelar" "Loading..." → "Cargando..." "Error" → "Error" "Success" → "Exito" Hungarian (hu) "Save" → "Mentes" "Cancel" → "Megse" "Loading..." → "Betoltes..." "Error" → "Hiba" "Success" → "Sikeres" Batch Processing When multiple entries need translation: Group by file for efficiency Show a summary of how many entries need translation per file Process entries one at a time, waiting for approval After all entries are reviewed, show summary of changes made Error Handling If no changed translation files found: Inform user and suggest running git status If no state="new" entries found: Inform user that all translations are up to date If context not found: Still propose translation based on source text alone, note missing context If file parse error: Report the error and skip the problematic file