🌍 Localship

Translate your app with the AI you already use. Free, local-first, and every translation is checked before it's written.

Quick start · Formats · When to use it · AI tools · Reference

Ask your coding agent to localize your app. Localship finds your translation files, gives the AI the context it needs, checks every translation before it touches your files, and keeps everything in your repo.

You:    Set up localization for this app.
Agent:  Found 18 strings in app/src/main/res. Which languages do you want?
You:    Hindi and Arabic.
Agent:  Before translating, I drafted a short brief, voice notes and a glossary. Have a look.
You:    Translate the app.
Agent:  36 translations written as drafts, 0 errors. Arabic has all six plural forms,
        and "Jotter Pro" was kept as written.

From the example app in examples/android-notes.

✨ Highlights

• 🛡️ Catches broken translations. Missing or mismatched placeholders, missing plural forms, Android escaping and markup are checked in code before anything is written. Translations that fail go back to the AI with the reason.

• 🧠 More context for the AI. Each string comes with the code that uses it, its comment, your glossary and voice notes, and translations of the same text elsewhere in your project.

• 🔒 Your files stay yours. No server, no account, no upload. Translations go into the files your app already uses, formatted the way Android Studio and Xcode write them.

• 🤖 Any model. Your coding agent's own model, or Claude, GPT, Gemini, OpenRouter, or a local model through Ollama.

• 💸 Free. MIT-licensed. You pay only for your own AI tokens, or nothing with a local model.

• ✋ People stay in charge. Translations land as drafts for review. Hand edits and approved translations are never overwritten unless you ask.

• 💻 Runs anywhere. macOS, Linux and Windows. As an MCP server, agent skills, or a CLI.

Related MCP server: i1n

📦 Formats

Android string arrays and plurals, String Catalog plural variations, and gettext plural forms are all supported. String Catalog substitutions and device variations come next.

🤔 When to use it

Your coding agent can already translate a strings.xml file if you ask. Localship is for when that stops being enough:

• You localize continuously. It tracks what's new, what changed since it was translated and what someone edited by hand, so each run only does the work that's needed.

• You have plurals and placeholders. Models regularly drop a %1$s, miss Arabic or Russian plural forms, or leave an Android apostrophe unescaped. These are caught before they reach your files, not at build time or in production.

• You want consistency. A glossary, voice notes and earlier translations keep terms and tone the same across hundreds of strings and both platforms.

• You don't want a cloud platform. Everything stays in your repo, with any model you like.

If you just need a handful of strings translated once, asking your agent directly is fine.

What the checks can't do is judge meaning or tone. That's what review is for.

🚀 Quick start

1. Install in Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add jigarfumakiya/localship
/plugin install localship@localship

Using Cursor, Codex, VS Code or another tool? See Works with your AI tools.

2. Ask. Open your app's repo and say what you want:

💬 Translate this app into Hindi and Arabic.

You get one short plan: what it found, what it will do, and the defaults it picked (like formality per language, and your app's name kept as written). Change anything in your reply.

3. Say "start translating". It sets everything up, writes a short brief, translates every string, checks each one, and reports back. No more questions unless something is truly blocked.

4. Review and ship.

💬 Review the Arabic translations.

When you're happy, say "approve them" and build your app as usual. 🎉

🧭 Wherever you're starting from

🤖 Works with your AI tools

Localship is an MCP server plus agent skills. Add the server to your tool, then ask in plain words as above.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "localship": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "github:jigarfumakiya/localship", "mcp"] }
  }
}

⏱️ The first start takes a minute while it installs; after that it's quick.

For agents that read skills (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI…), add the step-by-step playbooks for setting up, making an app localizable, translating and reviewing:

npx skills add jigarfumakiya/localship

⌨️ Without an agent

Everything also works from the terminal, which is handy for big apps and CI:

npm install -g github:jigarfumakiya/localship

localship plan hindi arabic                                   # what it takes, before changing anything
localship start hi,ar --model anthropic:claude-sonnet-5-5     # set up and translate in one go
localship validate                                            # exits 1 on errors: use it in CI
localship approve

🔍 How it works

flowchart LR
    A[📁 Your repo] --> B[🔎 Find strings]
    B --> C[🧠 Batch + context<br/><sub>code usage · comments<br/>glossary · voice · memory</sub>]
    C --> D[🤖 AI translates<br/><sub>your agent or any model</sub>]
    D --> E{🛡️ Checks<br/><sub>placeholders · plurals<br/>escaping · markup</sub>}
    E -- fails --> D
    E -- passes --> F[📝 Drafts in your files]
    F --> G[👀 Review] --> H[✅ Approved]

Failed checks go back to the AI with the reason, so it can fix them. Translation state lives in a small lockfile next to your config, so the tool knows what's new, what changed and what someone edited by hand.

❓ Questions

Only to the AI you choose. There's no Localship server.

No. Hand edits and anything approved are never replaced unless you explicitly ask.

Any. Plural rules come from Unicode's CLDR data, so Arabic gets six plural forms, Russian three and Japanese one, automatically.

As good as the model and the context you give it. The brief, voice and glossary make the biggest difference. The checks catch mechanical errors (placeholders, plural forms, escaping), not wrong meaning, so review the drafts, ideally with a native speaker. See a real result in examples/android-notes.

Not for production yet. Setup, translation, checks, review and cleanup work for the three supported formats on macOS, Linux and Windows, with about 190 automated tests and real-world sample files. It hasn't been used to ship a real app yet, and translating through a model API hasn't been tried against a live provider. See the plan for what's next.

🛣️ Roadmap

• Android, String Catalog and gettext formats

• Setup, translation with context, checks, review, approval and cleanup

• MCP server, agent skills, Claude Code plugin

• npm package (npx localship)

• Tools to find hardcoded text in Kotlin and Swift

• Flutter ARB, JSON and Apple .strings formats

• GitHub Action for pull requests

• AI reviewer with scores, and a review page for human translators

• Store listings, and visual checks for cut-off or right-to-left text

📚 Learn more

• 📖 Reference: every command, option, config key, format detail and check

• 🧪 Example: a small app translated into Hindi and Arabic

• 🤝 Contributing: development setup and how the code is laid out

• 🗺️ Plan and research: where this is going, and how it compares to paid tools

📄 License

MIT