Translations Module

The translations module (@backstage/cli-module-translations) provides commands for exporting and importing translation messages, supporting the internationalization workflow for Backstage apps. For more details on the translation workflow, see the Internationalization documentation.

translations export

Export translation messages from an app and all of its frontend plugins to JSON files. This command must be run from within a package directory (for example packages/app), not from the repository root.

The command discovers all TranslationRef definitions in the dependency tree, extracts their default messages using the TypeScript type system, and writes them as JSON files along with a manifest.

Usage: backstage-cli translations export [options]

Options:
  --output <dir>       Output directory for exported messages and manifest (default: "translations")
  --pattern <pattern>  File path pattern for message files relative to the output
                       directory, with {id} and {lang} placeholders
                       (default: "messages/{id}.{lang}.json")
  -h, --help           display help for command

Examples

Export translations with default settings:

cd packages/app
yarn backstage-cli translations export

Export with language-based directory grouping:

yarn backstage-cli translations export --pattern '{lang}/{id}.json'

translations import

Generate translation resource wiring code from translated JSON files. Reads the manifest and translated message files produced by translations export, and generates a TypeScript module that creates TranslationResource objects for each translated ref.

The file pattern used during export is stored in the manifest and automatically used by the import command.

Usage: backstage-cli translations import [options]

Options:
  --input <dir>    Input directory containing the manifest and translated message files (default: "translations")
  --output <path>  Output path for the generated wiring module (default: "src/translations/resources.ts")
  -h, --help       display help for command

Examples

Generate wiring code with default settings:

cd packages/app
yarn backstage-cli translations import