Crowdin CLI uses a configuration file that contains a description of the resources to manage: files to be uploaded into Crowdin and the locations of the corresponding translations.
To use Crowdin CLI, you should first generate your configuration file and then run the tool. By default, Crowdin CLI looks for a configuration file named crowdin.yml (so you don’t have to specify the file name unless it’s different from crowdin.yml).
To create the configuration file, run the following command:
$ crowdin initA valid Crowdin CLI configuration file has the following structure, so please ensure that you fill out all the needed information:
A typical configuration file looks similar to the following:
"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"preserve_hierarchy": true
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # https://{organization-name}.crowdin.com for Crowdin Enterprise
"files": [
{
"source": "/locale/en/folder1/[0-2].txt", #source files filter
"translation": "/locale/%two_letters_code%/folder1/%original_file_name%" #where translations are stored
},
{
"source": "/locale/en/folder2/[0-2].txt",
"translation": "/locale/%two_letters_code%/folder2/%original_file_name%"
}
]
To run the above configuration file and upload source files to Crowdin:
$ crowdin upload sourcesGet translations from Crowdin and put them in the right locations:
$ crowdin downloadYou could load the API Credentials from an environment variable, for example:
"project_id_env": "CROWDIN_PROJECT_ID"
"api_token_env": "CROWDIN_PERSONAL_TOKEN"
"base_path_env": "CROWDIN_BASE_PATH"
"base_url_env": "CROWDIN_BASE_URL"
If mixed, api_token and project_id are prioritized:
"project_id_env": "CROWDIN_PROJECT_ID" # Low priority
"api_token_env": "CROWDIN_PERSONAL_TOKEN" # Low priority
"base_path_env": "CROWDIN_BASE_PATH" # Low priority
"base_url_env": "CROWDIN_BASE_PATH" # Low priority
"project_id": "projectId" # High priority
"api_token": "personal-access-token" # High priority
"base_path": "/project-base-path" # High priority
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # High priority
The crowdin.yml file contains a description of the resources to manage and API credentials (project_id, api_token, base_path, base_url). It means that it’s unsafe to commit this file into the code repository because the API key would be accessible to other users. Crowdin CLI supports two types of configuration files:
If you need to run a command with user-specific credentials (for example, upload sources), run the following command:
$ crowdin upload sources --identity 'path-to-user-credentials-file'But if user-specific credentials file residing in $HOME/.crowdin.yml you can run:
$ crowdin upload sourcesThe sample configuration provided above has source and translation attributes containing standard wildcards (also known as globbing patterns) to make it easier to work with multiple files.
Here are patterns you can use:
* (asterisk)
Represents any character in the file or directory name. If you specify a “*.json” it will include all files like “messages.json”, “about_us.json”, and anything that ends with “.json”.
** (doubled asterisk)
Matches any string recursively (including sub-directories). Note that you can use ** in both source and translation patterns. When using ** in the translation pattern, it will always contain a sub-path from the source for a certain file. For example, you can use source: ‘/en/**/*.po’ to upload all *.po files to Crowdin recursively. The translation pattern will be ‘/%two_letters_code%/**/%original_file_name%’.
? (question mark)
Matches any single character.
[set]
Matches any single character in a set. Behaves exactly like character sets in Regexp, including set negation ([^a-z]).
\ (backslash)
Escapes the next metacharacter.
Crowdin CLI allows to use the following placeholders to put appropriate variables into the resulting file name:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| %original_file_name% | Original file name |
| %original_path% | Take parent folders names in Crowdin project to build file path in the resulted bundle |
| %file_extension% | Original file extension |
| %file_name% | File name without extension |
| %language% | Language name (e.g., Ukrainian) |
| %two_letters_code% | Language code ISO 639-1 (e.g., uk) |
| %three_letters_code% | Language code ISO 639-2/T (e.g., ukr) |
| %locale% | Locale (e.g., uk-UA) |
| %locale_with_underscore% | Locale (e.g., uk_UA) |
| %android_code% | Android Locale identifier used to name "values-" directories |
| %osx_code% | OS X Locale identifier used to name ".lproj" directories |
| %osx_locale% | OS X locale used to name translation resources (e.g., uk, zh-Hans, zh_HK) |
You can also define the path for files in the resulting archive by putting a slash (/) at the beginning of the pattern.
Your translation option may look like: “/locale/%two_letters_code%/LC_MESSAGES/%original_file_name%”.
Structure of files and directories on the local machine:
- base_path
|
|-- folder
| |
| |-- 1.xml
| |-- 1.txt
| |-- 123.txt
| |-- 123_test.txt
| |-- a.txt
| |-- a1.txt
| |-- crowdin?test.txt
| |-- crowdin_test.txt
|
|-- 1.xml
|-- 1.txt
|-- 123.txt
|-- 123_test.txt
|-- a.txt
|-- a1.txt
|-- crowdin?test.txt
|-- crowdin_test.txt
|-- 3.txt
Example 1. Usage of wildcards in the source path:
#........your project configuration........
"files": [
{
"source": "/**/?[0-9].txt", #upload a1.txt, folder/a1.txt
"translation": "/**/%two_letters_code%_%original_file_name%"
},
{
"source": "/**/*\\?*.txt", #upload crowdin?test.txt, folder/crowdin?test.txt
"translation": "/**/%two_letters_code%_%original_file_name%"
},
{
"source": "/**/[^0-2].txt", #upload 3.txt, folder/3.txt, a.txt, folder/a.txt (ignore 1.txt, folder/1.txt)
"translation": "/**/%two_letters_code%_%original_file_name%"
}
]
Example 2. Usage of wildcards for ignoring files:
#........your project configuration........
"files": [
{
"source": "/**/*.*", #upload all files that the base_path contains
"translation": "/**/%two_letters_code%_%original_file_name%",
"ignore": [
"/**/%two_letters_code%_%original_file_name%", #ignore the translated files
"/**/?.txt", #ignore 1.txt, a.txt, folder/1.txt, folder/a.txt
"/**/[0-9].txt", #ignore 1.txt, folder/1.txt
"/**/*\\?*.txt", #ignore crowdin?test.txt, folder/crowdin?test.txt
"/**/[0-9][0-9][0-9].txt", #ignore 123.txt , folder/123.txt
"/**/[0-9]*_*.txt" #ignore 123_test.txt, folder/123_test.txt
]
}
]
Often software projects have custom names for locale directories. Crowdin allows you to map your own languages to be recognizable in your projects.
Let’s say your locale directories are named ‘en’, ‘uk’, ‘fr’, ‘de’. All of them can be represented by the %two_letters_code% placeholder. Still, you have one directory named ‘zh_CH’. You can also override language codes for other placeholders like %android_code%, %locale%, etc.
To make it work with Crowdin without changes in your project, you can set up Language Mapping via UI.
If you need to rename a file with translations after the export, you can easily do this with the help of the parameter translation_replace.
For example, if the file is named “en_strings.po”, it can be renamed to “strings.po”. For this, add a new parameter (at the same level as the translation parameter) to the configuration file (crowdin.yml):
"files": [
{
"source": "/locale/**/en_*.po",
"translation": "/locale/**/%two_letters_code%_%original_file_name%",
"translation_replace": {
"en_": ""
}
}
]
In this case, “_en” will be erased from the file name.
From time to time, there are files and directories you don’t need to translate in Crowdin. In such cases, local per-file rules can be added to the config file in your project.
"files": [
{
"source": "/**/*.properties",
"translation": "/**/%file_name%_%two_letters_code%.%file_extension%",
"ignore": [
"/test/file.properties",
"/example.properties"
]
},
{
"source": "/locale/en/**/*.po",
"translation": "/locale/%two_letters_code%/**/%original_file_name%",
"ignore": [
"/locale/en/templates",
"/locale/en/workflow"
]
}
]
By default, the source files are available for translation into all target languages of the project. If some source files shouldn’t be translated into specific target languages, you can exclude them with the help of the parameter excluded_target_languages.
Configuration file example:
"files": [
{
"source": "/resources/en/*.json",
"translation": "/resources/%two_letters_code%/%original_file_name%",
"excluded_target_languages": [
"uk",
"fr"
]
}
]
If a CSV or XLS/XLSX file contains the translations for all target languages, you should specify appropriate language codes in the scheme.
CSV file example:
identifier,source_phrase,context,Ukrainian,Russian,French
ident1,Source 1,Context 1,,,
ident2,Source 2,Context 2,,,
ident3,Source 3,Context 3,,,Configuration file example:
"files": [
{
"source": "multicolumn.csv",
"translation": "multicolumn.csv",
"first_line_contains_header": true,
"scheme": "identifier,source_phrase,context,uk,ru,fr"
}
]
If your CSV or XLS/XLSX file contains columns that should be skipped on import, use none for such columns in the scheme, for example:
"scheme" : "identifier,source_phrase,context,uk,none,ru,none,fr"
To form the scheme for your CSV or XLS/XLSX file, use the following constants:
identifier – Column contains string identifiers.
source_phrase – Column contains source strings.
source_or_translation – Column contains source strings, but the same column will be filled with translations when the file is exported. When uploading existing translations, the values from this column will be used as translations.
translation – Column contains translations.
context – Column contains comments or context information for the source strings.
max_length – Column contains max.length limit values for the translations of the strings.
labels – Column contains labels for the source strings.
none – Column that will be skipped on import.
"preserve_hierarchy": true
Example of the configuration file using the preserve_hierarchy option:
"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # https://{organization-name}.crowdin.com for Crowdin Enterprise
"preserve_hierarchy": true
"files": [
{
"source": "/locale/en/**/*.po",
"translation": "/locale/%two_letters_code%/**/%original_file_name%"
}
]
true. Let’s say the file/folder structure on your machine looks like this:
- locale
|
|-- en
|-- emails
|-- app
|-- foo.po
|-- bar.po
If you don’t use the "preserve_hierarchy": true option in your configuration file at all or use it with the false value, all shared directories will be skipped, and the file structure in Crowdin will be represented as follows:
- foo.po
- bar.po
"preserve_hierarchy": false option works only if your source files have a shared root directory. Using the "preserve_hierarchy": true option, the file structure in Crowdin will be represented as follows:
- locale
|
|-- en
|-- app
|-- foo.po
|-- bar.po
The directories that don’t contain any files for translation won’t be created in Crowdin (i.e., as the emails directory in the example above).
This feature adds support for two optional parameters in the yml file section: dest and type. It’s typically used for projects where the uploaded name must be different so that Crowdin can detect the type correctly.
The dest parameter allows you to specify a file name in Crowdin. It works for multiple files at once and supports the following placeholders: %original_file_name%, %original_path%, %file_extension%, %file_name%.
dest parameter, the configuration file should include the preserve_hierarchy parameter with the true value.Example of the configuration file with both parameters:
"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # https://{organization-name}.crowdin.com for Crowdin Enterprise
"preserve_hierarchy": true
"files": [
{
"source": "/conf/**/*.txt",
"dest": "/conf/**/%file_name%.properties",
"translation": "/conf/**/%two_letters_code%/%file_name%.properties",
"type": "properties"
},
{
"source": "/app/*.txt",
"dest": "/app/%file_name%.xml",
"translation": "/res/values-%android_code%/%original_file_name%",
"type": "android"
},
{
"source": "/conf/**/*.txt",
"dest": "/%original_path%/%file_name%.properties",
"translation": "/conf/**/%two_letters_code%/%original_file_name%",
"type": "properties"
}
]
The parameter update_option is optional. If it is not set, translations for changed strings will be lost. Useful for typo fixes and minor changes in source strings.
Depending on the value, update_option is used to preserve translations and preserve/remove validations of changed strings during file update.
The values are:
Example of the configuration file with update_option parameter:
"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # https://{organization-name}.crowdin.com for Crowdin Enterprise
"files": [
{
"source": "/*.csv",
"translation": "/%three_letters_code%/%file_name%.csv",
"first_line_contains_header": true,
"scheme": "identifier,source_phrase,translation,context",
"update_option": "update_as_unapproved"
},
{
"source": "/**/*.xlsx",
"translation": "/%three_letters_code%/folder/%file_name%.xlsx",
"update_option": "update_without_changes"
}
]
Upload your XML, HTML, MD, or any other source files without a key-value structure with your own segmentation rules. If not specified, the pre-defined segmentation rules (SRX 2.0) are used for automatic content segmentation.
Example of the configuration file with custom segmentation:
"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # https://{organization-name}.crowdin.com for Crowdin Enterprise
"files": [
{
"source": "/emails/sample1.html",
"translation": "/emails/%locale%/%original_file_name%",
"custom_segmentation": "/rules/sample.srx.xml"
}
]
The command upload translations uploads existing translations to Crowdin. If no options are specified, the uploaded translations will not be imported even if they are equal to the source strings and will not be approved.
The values are:
| translate_content optional | bool | Defines whether to translate texts placed inside the tags. Acceptable values are 0 or 1. Default is 1. |
| translate_attributes optional | bool | Defines whether to translate tags' attributes. Acceptable values are 0 or 1. Default is 1. |
| content_segmentation optional | bool | Defines whether to split long texts into smaller text segments. Acceptable values are 0 or 1. Default is 1. Note: When Content segmentation is enabled, the translation upload is handled by an experimental machine learning technology. |
| translatable_elements optional | array | This is an array of strings, where each item is the XPaths to DOM element that should be imported. Sample path: /path/to/node or /path/to/attribute[@attr] Note! If defined, the parameters translate_content and translate_attributes are not taken into account while importing. |
Example of the configuration file with additional parameters:
"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # https://{organization-name}.crowdin.com for Crowdin Enterprise
"files": [
{
"source": "/app/sample1.xml",
"translation": "/app/%locale%/%original_file_name%",
"translate_attributes": 1,
"translate_content": 0
},
{
"source": "/app/sample2.xml",
"translation": "/app/%locale%/%original_file_name%",
"translatable_elements": [
"/content/text", # translatable texts are stored in 'text' nodes of parent node 'content'
"/content/text[@value]" # translatable texts are stored in 'value' attribute of 'text' nodes
]
}
]
| content_segmentation optional | bool | Defines whether to split long texts into smaller text segments. Only for TXT, DOCX, DITA, IDML, MIF, MEDIAWIKI, HTML, Front Matter HTML, Markdown, Front Matter Markdown, XML, XLIFF, XLIFF 2.0 Acceptable values are 0 or 1. Default is 1. Note: When Content segmentation is enabled, the translation upload is handled by an experimental machine learning technology. |
Example of the configuration file with additional parameters:
"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # https://{organization-name}.crowdin.com for Crowdin Enterprise
"files": [
{
"source": "/emails/sample1.html",
"translation": "/emails/%locale%/%original_file_name%",
"content_segmentation": 1
}
]
To configure the preferred export behavior for each file group, you may use the following export options:
skip_untranslated_strings – Only translated strings will be included in the exported translation files.
skip_untranslated_files – Only translated files will be included in the exported translation archive.
export_only_approved – Only texts that are both translated and approved will be included in the exported translation files.
Example of the configuration file with the export options:
"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # https://{organization-name}.crowdin.com for Crowdin Enterprise
"preserve_hierarchy": true
"files": [
{
"source": "/locale/en/**/*.po",
"translation": "/locale/%two_letters_code%/**/%original_file_name%",
"skip_untranslated_strings": true
},
{
"source": "/locale/en/**/*.json",
"translation": "/locale/%two_letters_code%/**/%original_file_name%",
"skip_untranslated_files": true
},
{
"source": "/locale/en/**/*.yml",
"translation": "/locale/%two_letters_code%/**/%original_file_name%",
"export_only_approved": true
}
]
Defines whether a single quote should be escaped by another single quote or backslash in exported translations. You can add the escape_quotes per-file option. Acceptable values are 0, 1, 2, 3. Default is 3.
The values are:
Escape special characters
Defines whether any special characters (=, :, ! and #) should be escaped by a backslash in exported translations. You can add the escape_special_characters per-file option.
Acceptable values are 0, 1. Default is 1.
Example of the configuration file:
"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # https://{organization-name}.crowdin.com for Crowdin Enterprise
"files": [
{
"source": "/en/strings.properties",
"translation": "/%two_letters_code%/%original_file_name%",
"escape_quotes": 1,
"translate_content": 0,
"escape_special_characters": 0
}
]
"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # https://{organization-name}.crowdin.com for Crowdin Enterprise
"files": [
{
"source": "/*.csv",
"translation": "/%two_letters_code%/%original_file_name%",
# Specifies whether first line should be imported or it contains columns headers
"first_line_contains_header": true,
# used only when uploading CSV file to define data columns mapping
"scheme": "identifier,source_phrase,translation,context,max_length"
}
]
"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # https://{organization-name}.crowdin.com for Crowdin Enterprise
"files" : [
{
"source" : "/locale/en/**/*.po",
"translation" : "/locale/%two_letters_code%/LC_MESSAGES/%original_file_name%",
"languages_mapping" : {
"two_letters_code" : {
"zh-CN" : "zh_CH",
"fr-QC": "fr"
}
}
}
]
"project_id": "projectId"
"api_token": "personal-access-token"
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"base_url": "https://api.crowdin.com" # https://{organization-name}.crowdin.com for Crowdin Enterprise
"files" : [
{
"source" : "/res/values/*.xml",
"translation" : "/res/values-%android_code%/%original_file_name%",
"languages_mapping" : {
"android_code" : {
"de" : "de",
"ru" : "ru"
}
}
}
]
VCS integrations require the same configuration file as the CLI tool, meaning the same structure is supported. The only difference is that you should not store the project credentials in the file header for security reasons. Also, you can use a few additional parameters.
The default pull request title is New Crowdin updates. To specify your custom pull request title and add labels to the pull request, you can use the following parameters in the configuration file: pull_request_title, pull_request_labels.
Example:
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"pull_request_title": "Custom PR title"
"pull_request_labels": [
"crowdin",
"l10n"
]
"files": [
{
"source" : "/resources/en/*.json",
"translation" : "/resources/%two_letters_code%/%original_file_name%"
}
]
Each time translations are committed the default message is shown “New translations {fileName} ({languageName})”. You can use the commit_message parameter to add Git tags (e.g., to skip builds).
Example:
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"commit_message": "[ci skip]"
"files": [
{
"source" : "/resources/en/*.json",
"translation" : "/resources/%two_letters_code%/%original_file_name%"
}
]
To replace the default commit message, use the append_commit_message parameter with the value false. You can also add two optional placeholders: %original_file_name% and %language% to use the appropriate file name and language variables accordingly.
Example:
"commit_message": "Fix: New translations %original_file_name% from Crowdin"
"append_commit_message": false
"files": [
{
"source" : "/resources/en/*.json",
"translation" : "/resources/%two_letters_code%/%original_file_name%"
}
]
By default, all the languages are exported. If you need to export some specific languages, use the export_languages parameter to specify them.
Example:
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"export_languages": [
"ru",
"uk",
"ja"
]
"files": [
{
"source" : "/resources/en/*.json",
"translation" : "/resources/%two_letters_code%/%original_file_name%"
}
]
To add existing or new labels to the source strings, use the labels parameter. Labels will be added to the source strings only during the initial upload to the Crowdin project.
The strings uploaded to the Crowdin project before the use of the labels parameter won’t be labeled. If you remove the label added during the initial upload directly in Crowdin, it won’t be re-added on the next syncs.
The label names can contain any characters except “,”.
Example:
"base_path": "/project-base-path"
"files": [
{
"source" : "/resources/en/*.json",
"translation" : "/resources/%two_letters_code%/%original_file_name%",
"labels" : [
"android",
"emails"
]
}
]
Read more about Labels.
There are cases when it’s necessary to use VCS integration and CLI for one project. Mostly, in this kind of situation, you’d need to have two separate configuration files, one for VCS integration and another for CLI. However, you can use a single configuration file for both cases.
Since the VCS integration configuration file doesn’t contain project_id and api_token credentials required for CLI, you can pass them directly in the command using the following parameters: -i/--project-id, -T/--token. Alternatively, you may use environment variables for this purpose.
As a result, your command for downloading translations via CLI will look like the following:
$ crowdin download -i {your-project-id} -T {your-token}Need help working with Crowdin CLI or have any questions? Contact Support Team.