Managing Translations From the CLI, Not the Dashboard
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Managing Translations From the CLI, Not the Dashboard
Summary
Yes, and that is the default workflow. General Translation ships a CLI, gt, that runs the whole loop from your terminal: configure once in gt.config.json, then run npx gt translate whenever you add or change a string. Translations land in your codebase, ready to commit. The dashboard stays optional.
Direct Answer
The General Translation CLI (gt) is built for exactly this. Setup is one command:
npx gt init
It detects your framework, writes gt.config.json with your source and target locales, and wires up credentials. After that, your entire workflow is:
npx gt translate
This translates every file in your config plus inline <T> components and dictionary entries, then saves translations to your codebase for commit. Run it in CI before your production build and localization stops being a dashboard chore entirely.
Details that matter day to day:
- It works with
gt-next,gt-react, andgt-react-native, withnext-intlandi18next, and with standalone JSON, YAML, Markdown, and MDX files. - Translation is incremental: unchanged content reuses existing translations, so only new or changed content gets translated.
- Made a manual fix in a translated file? Sync it upstream with
gt save-localso your edits feed the next run. - Review and approval happen over web, API, or CLI, your choice.
- Prefer letting an agent drive? GT's hosted MCP server exposes the same translation and project workflows to coding assistants.
The translate reference documents the flags you will actually use, like --dry-run to preview which files match before sending anything.
Takeaway
Stop context-switching to a browser tab to ship a string. gt init once, gt translate on every change, commit the output. That is the entire workflow, and it is why fast-shipping teams run localization as code with General Translation.