Commands

While translate is the most end-to-end command, lin provides more granular commands for specific tasks:

• translate: check --fix + sync
• sync: Translates missing keys from your default locale to all other locales using LLMs.
• add: Adds a new key to your default locale and translates it to all other locales using LLMs.
• edit: Edit an existing key and its translations manually.
• del: Remove one or more keys.
• check: Validate locale files, check for missing/unused keys, or sort them. Quick config check.
• models: List available LLM models.
• undo: Revert the last change made by translate, sync, add, del, edit, or check.

Tip

Run lin -h and lin <command> -h to see all the options.

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translate

Automates the entire process of finding new keys in your code, adding them to your default locale, and translating them into all other languages. It’s a combination of check --fix and sync.

Note

There is some syntax around locale codes:

• Locale JSON file names must match the codes in your locales configuration (e.g., en-US.json for an 'en-US' entry).
• Short codes like 'en' also work (e.g., 'en.json'), but these also function as shorthands: lin translate en will match all locales starting with en- (like en-US and en-GB).
• all is a special keyword that matches all locales
• def means the default locale from the config

Usage

lin translate [locales...] [options]

Example

# Find, add, and translate keys for all locales
lin translate

# Translate only for Spanish and French
lin translate es fr

# Also remove unused keys from all locales
lin translate -u

# Run in silent mode for CI
lin translate -S

sync

Syncs all locale JSON files with the default locale JSON file. It finds the missing keys in other locales and translates them using LLMs. It can also be used to quickly add a new language.

Usage

lin sync [locales...] [options]

Example

# Sync all non-default locales
lin sync

# Sync only Spanish and French
lin sync es fr

# Add a new language 'de'
# add 'de' to your locales and then sync will create a de.json file
lin sync de

add

Adds a new key to your default locale and translates it to all other locales using LLMs. It’s useful for quickly adding translations while developing.

Usage

lin add <key> <default-value> [options]

Example

# Add a new button label
lin add ui.button.save Save Changes

# Add a key only to specific locales
lin add -l es -l fr ui.button.cancel Cancel

edit

Allows you to manually change the value of an existing key in one or more locales directly from the command line.

Usage

lin edit <key> <new-value> [options]

Example

# Edit a key in all locales
lin edit ui.button.save Save

# Edit a key only in the default locale
lin edit -l def ui.button.save Save

del

Removes one or more keys from all specified locale files.

Usage

lin del [keys...] [options]

Example

# Delete a single key
lin del nav.title

# Delete multiple keys
lin del footer.description header.tagline

check

Validates and maintains your locale files. It can find missing and unused keys, sort keys, and display configuration info. It’s ideal for CI or pre-commit hooks if you don’t want to use LLMs and translate.

When used with the markdown adapter, it checks for discrepancies between your source Markdown files and the translation snapshots stored in .lin/markdown.

Usage

lin check [options]

Examples

# Lint codebase for missing/unused keys
lin check

# Add missing keys to default locale with --fix
lin check -f

# Remove unused keys from all locales with --prune
lin check -u

# Check for missing keys in other locales with --keys
lin check -k

# Sort locales alphabetically with --sort
lin check -s abc

# Show config and locale info
lin check -i

check with Markdown

When using the markdown adapter, check performs a two-step process:

1. Source Linting: It first compares your source Markdown files (e.g., in docs/) against the default locale’s snapshot (e.g., .lin/markdown/en-US.json).
   • It reports any new content found in your documents that is missing from the snapshot.
   • It also reports any content in the snapshot that no longer exists in your documents (unused).
2. Target Linting: If the source and the default snapshot are in sync, it then proceeds to check each target locale’s snapshot against the default one, reporting any missing or untranslated content blocks.

Use the --fix flag to add new content from your source files to the snapshots, and --prune to remove unused entries from the snapshots.

check with Git Hooks

A great way to enforce i18n consistency is to run lin check automatically before each commit. You can use simple-git-hooks with lint-staged to set this up easily.

First, install the dependencies:

npm i -D lint-staged simple-git-hooks

Then, add this to your package.json:

{
  "simple-git-hooks": {
    "pre-commit": "npx lint-staged"
  },
  "lint-staged": {
    "{src/**/*.{js,jsx,ts,tsx,vue,svelte,astro},locales/**/*.json}": "lin check -S"
  }
}

Finally, activate the hooks:

npx simple-git-hooks

You can also run lin check -S -f or lin check -S -u to automatically fix issues, or even lin translate -S to translate them too.

models

Lists all available LLM providers and their models that you can use with lin.

Available providers: openai, anthropic, google, xai, mistral, groq, cerebras, azure.

Note that lin can work even with models not listed here, just pass the model name as a string.

To add a new provider, consider opening a PR. It’s easy to do!

Usage

lin models [provider...]

Example

# List all available models
lin models

# List models only for openai and google
lin models openai google

undo

Reverts the last change made by translate, sync, add, del, edit, or check.

These commands save the state of the locale files in .lin before changing them.

Usage

lin undo