Translation Key Sync

After every commit you make in the SourceRepo, copies the changed i18n keys into the DestinationRepo (same file, same key) for every configured locale, translating them on the way.

Setup (per developer)

Click Key Sync: set up in the status bar (or run Translation Key Sync: Configure) and pick:

The SourceRepo must be open in VS Code. The DestinationRepo does not need to be.

What it does

• Detects a new commit through VS Code's Git API (works for the Source Control UI and terminal commits).
• Diffs parent..commit for JSON files under sourceDir; adds, changes or removes only those keys.
• Edits target files in place, keeping their indentation and line endings.
• Skips merge commits, multi-commit fast-forwards, amends, rebases, branch switches and (by default) other people's commits.
• Translation: Hugging Face backend first, Google free endpoint as fallback. {{placeholders}}, %s, $t(...) and HTML tags are protected. Strings that cannot be translated keep the English text and are reported in the log.

Behaviour details

• A new source file, or a changed file whose copy is missing in the DestinationRepo, is created whole (all keys), with the source file's line endings and indentation. Sub-folders are mirrored.
• Source files deleted in a commit are ignored; target files are never deleted.
• Booleans, numbers and null are copied as-is. Multi-line strings are translated line by line.
• localeSync.provider: auto uses the Hugging Face backend and switches to Google first when a commit needs more than 30 strings (the Space handles roughly one string every 3-5 s).

Never losing a string

• Sleeping Space: at the start of a sync the extension wakes the backend with a small request. A cold start (container plus model load) can take minutes, so Google translates in the meantime and the backend takes over once it answers. A late reply from the backend is simply ignored.
• Retries: a failing or rate-limited provider is retried with growing delays; the sync waits rather than skipping. Long strings are split at sentence ends so nothing is truncated.
• Verification: after writing, every file is re-read from disk and each key is checked.
• If nothing works within localeSync.maxWaitMinutes (default 5): the key is still written (in English, so the app never shows a missing key), the string goes into a persistent queue, and the status bar shows Key Sync: N pending. The queue is retried automatically every 5 minutes and at startup (or run Retry Pending Translations). A queued string is only replaced if the file still holds the English placeholder; if someone edited it meanwhile it is left alone.
• Interrupted syncs: if VS Code closes mid-sync, the commit is synced again at the next start.
• Nothing is committed or pushed in either repo. Review the DestinationRepo's working tree yourself. To undo: git checkout -- . and git clean -fd locales in the DestinationRepo.
• backend-patch/README.md (in the source repo) describes optional fixes to the Space: a source-language parameter and longer strings.

Commands: Translation Key Sync: Configure, Sync Last Commit, Show Log.

Develop

npm install, then F5 (Run Extension). Package with npx @vscode/vsce package.