Automating Localization with Github Actions: A How-To Guide

Automated Localization

You have probably already heard of continuous localization. It’s important as software development is a never-ending process, and with new features, you usually need to add new strings.

Fully automated localization is a level above it. As a developer, you only set up it once, and then, you can forget about it completely.

And as we are going to use Github Actions, it’s gonna be fun!

Configure Localization Platform

Let’s suppose that your mobile, desktop or web app is ready for localization, and strings in the source language are stored in JSON, YAML, iOS’ strings, Flutter’s ARB, or some other common format.

Sign up with Localazy, create a new project, install the CLI tool, and then create and test your 

localazy.json

 configuration. You should be able to upload the source language files and download localized ones.

My configuration is as simple as:

From this moment on, Localazy is the place to manage your translations, translators, and contributors. And as a bonus, it translates your app to up to 80 languages for free by sharing translations with other apps.

Creating and testing 

localazy.json

 is essential as it’s used by the Github actions described below.

Setup Secrets

Private data should not be committed, and so, before the commit, let’s remove the read and write keys from the configuration file above and instead place them to Github Secrets.

Create a repository on Github if you haven’t yet, go to Settings > Secrets, and add keys here. My configuration looks like:

Ignore Localized Files

The source language file - in my case 

en.json

 - is the source of truth, and for localized files, it’s the latest version on Localazy. I don’t need those files to be committed to my repository.

With a simple 

.gitignore

 file placed in the 

locales

 folder, I can filter out all localized files except for the source language one:

Automate Uploading

If you are not familiar with Github Actions, I recommend reading more about it. It may take some time to get used to it, but it saves you a lot of time. We use it extensively for building releases of our Localazy CLI.

The configuration below is all I need for uploading the source language file 

en.json

 to Localazy with each commit that changes it. I add a new feature, add new strings to 

en.json

, commit it, and push it. Done.

And all you need to do now is to create 

.github/workflows/upload.yml

 file with this content:

If you need to fine-tune it, there is the documentation for the upload action on Github Marketplace.

It’s also simple to configure the 

on

 clause to upload strings to Localazy only for releases, certain tags or branches. See its configuration on Github docs.

On each push touching 

en.json

, I get this beauty:

Automate Downloading

Normally, you would integrate downloading localizable files from Localazy into your build chain, so they are added before building the release.

For clarity, let’s test just the downloading and omit other steps.

Create file 

.github/workflows/download.yml

 for downloading the latest version of localizable files whenever the tag 

v*

 is pushed.

Of course, this example effectively does nothing as files are only downloaded to the action, and if we don’t use them to produce the release build, they are lost once the action is finished and cleared.

The documentation for the 

localazy/download

 action is available on Github Marketplace.

Pushing 

v2

 tag to my test repository (notice that there is 

cs.json

 file):

Source Code

The source code of a demonstrational project for this post is available on Github. Do not forget to explore the content of the 

.github/workflows

 folder!

Closing Words

As you can see, it’s simple enough to completely remove the localization burden from your shoulders with Localazy. No more file handling. All the translations of your lovely app can be managed in a single place with beautiful UI designed for developers and those that want them to bring their apps into the multilingual realm.