The localazy translate command provides on-demand, realtime AI translation directly from the command line. Unlike the batch operations, it does not modify any phrases stored in your project — it just returns translations synchronously so you can use them in scripts, build pipelines, or one-off tasks.

This is the same translation technology that powers Localazy AI in the editor and integrations, exposed for ad-hoc use without requiring a separate public API token.

Authorization #️⃣

AI translation is restricted to project owners. The command uses the standard writeKey configured for the CLI — managers and other roles will be rejected with an authorization error.

See Authorization for details on how to configure the key.

Context #️⃣

This command automatically uses the project’s style guide, glossary and other contextual cues (comments, translation notes, key names, etc.). For best results, make sure you configure it before translation.

Credits #️⃣

Each use of the translate command consumes Localazy credits from your Localazy account balance. The number of credits used depends on the number of translated words.

Translate a single text #️⃣

The simplest invocation translates a piece of text from one language to another:

localazy translate --from en --to cs --text "Hello, world!"

The translated text is printed to standard output. This makes it easy to pipe into other tools or capture into shell variables:

TRANSLATED=$(localazy translate --from en --to de --text "Welcome")

Translate multiple items from a JSON file #️⃣

For bulk on-demand translation, prepare a JSON file with the items to translate and pass it via --input:

localazy translate --from en --to cs --input items.json

The input file must be a JSON array of items. The minimal item only needs key and source:

[
  {
    "key": "greeting",
    "source": "Hello, world!"
  },
  {
    "key": "farewell",
    "source": "Goodbye!"
  }
]

The output is a JSON object mapping each key to its translation, pretty-printed by default:

{
  "greeting": "Ahoj, světe!",
  "farewell": "Sbohem!"
}

Use --compact to emit a single-line JSON object instead — useful when the output is consumed by another program:

localazy translate --from en --to cs --input items.json --compact

Plurals #️⃣

The source of an item can be either a string (for regular phrases) or an object whose keys are CLDR plural categories (zero, one, two, few, many, other):

[
  {
    "key": "item_count",
    "source": {
      "one": "%d item",
      "other": "%d items"
    }
  }
]

The translation in the response will follow the same shape — a string for singles, an object keyed by the target language’s CLDR plural categories for plurals.

Item metadata #️⃣

Each item in the input file accepts optional fields that help the AI engine produce better translations:

Example with metadata:

[
  {
    "key": "greeting",
    "source": "Hello, world!",
    "comment": "Should be informal",
    "file": "strings.xml",
    "lengthLimit": 50
  }
]

Command-line options #️⃣

You must provide either --text or --input — invoking the command without one of them is an error.

Limits and rate limiting #️⃣

The realtime translation endpoint is subject to per-project rate limits and per-request size limits to prevent abuse. If you need to translate large amounts of content as part of your project workflow, please contact us.

Examples #️⃣

Translate a literal string and print the result:

localazy translate --from en --to cs --text "Hello, world!"

Translate a batch from a file and store the result as JSON:

localazy translate --from en --to de --input src.json --compact > de.json