# General Translation Changelog: gt-node 0.2.0: Server-side translation for Node.js
URL: https://generaltranslation.com/en-US/blog/gt-node_v0_2_0.mdx
Docs index: https://generaltranslation.com/llms.txt
Description: 
Authors: Ernest McCarter
Published: 2026-02-17

## Overview

**IMPORTANT** This library is still experimental and may be subject to breaking changes.

`gt-node` brings General Translation to server-side JavaScript. It works in **Node.js**, **Bun**, and **Deno**.

By establishing a per-request context via `AsyncLocalStorage`, `gt-node` lets you import translation functions directly from the library:

```js
const gt = await getGT();
```

This mirrors the API in our other libraries like `gt-next` when working with async functions.

---

## What's Included

- **[`initializeGT()`](/docs/node/reference/functions/initialize-gt)** — Configures the i18n singleton. Call once at server startup.
- **`withGT(locale, fn)`** — Wraps a request handler to scope the locale. All translation calls inside the callback use the provided locale. All routes must be wrapped in [`withGT`](/docs/node/reference/functions/with-gt).
- **[`getGT()`](/docs/node/reference/functions/get-gt)** — Returns a translation function for inline strings. Supports variable interpolation and ICU message format.

---

## Quickstart (Express)

### Install

```bash
npm install gt-node
```

### Initialize

```js title="server.js"
import express from 'express';
import { initializeGT, withGT, getGT } from 'gt-node';

initializeGT({
  defaultLocale: 'en-US',
  locales: ['en-US', 'es', 'fr'],
  projectId: process.env.GT_PROJECT_ID,
});

const app = express();
```

### Add locale middleware

Extract the locale from request headers (or cookies, query params — however your app determines locale) and wrap each request with [`withGT`](/docs/node/reference/functions/with-gt):

```js title="server.js"
app.use((req, res, next) => {
  const locale = req.headers['accept-language']?.split(',')[0] || 'en-US';
  withGT(locale, () => next());
});
```

### Translate

```js title="server.js"
app.get('/api/greeting', async (req, res) => {
  const gt = await getGT();
  res.json({ message: gt('Hello, world!') });
});

app.listen(3000);
```

### Translate and deploy

```bash
npx gt translate --publish
```

That's it. Strings are picked up by the GT compiler at build time, translated during CD, and resolved per-request at runtime.

---

## Looking Forward

`gt-node` and `gt-tanstack-start` are the first two libraries built on the `gt-i18n` singleton architecture. Expect more framework adapters to follow the same pattern.

Feedback welcome on [Discord](https://discord.gg/SjQwPjZaGa) or [GitHub](https://github.com/generaltranslation/gt/issues).

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