@ultimat3/i18n

🌍 @ultimat3/i18n

Golden rule: no user-facing string is written twice, and a missing one is loud. Every string goes through t(). A key with no translation renders ⟦key⟧ — never blank, never the English fallback, never silence. Numbers, dates and money are not i18n strings: format those with Intl via @ultimat3/money and @ultimat3/time.

Concern	Owner	Rule
Registration	define-catalogs.ts	defineCatalogs() — one call, at boot, per app
Lookup + interpolation	translator.ts	t(key, vars?), miss → ⟦key⟧
Catalog shape	catalog.ts	nested authoring → flat dot-keys
Placeholders + plurals	interpolate.ts	{var}, CLDR categories via Intl.PluralRules
Locale resolution	locales.ts	supported set, normalizeLocale, negotiateLocale
Request locale	context.ts	resolved once, read from ALS — never passed by hand
Enforcement	extract.ts	x verify fails on a missing key in a shipped locale

Declare the catalogs, once

defineCatalogs is the only way an app registers strings. Never call registerCatalog by hand.

// the app's own packages/i18n/src/index.ts — its whole i18n module
import { defineCatalogs, type TranslationKey, type Translator, useI18n } from '@ultimat3/i18n';
import en from '../catalogs/en.json';
import es from '../catalogs/es.json';

export const catalogs = defineCatalogs({ default: 'en', locales: { en, es } });

export type AppCatalog = typeof en;
export type AppKey = TranslationKey<AppCatalog>; // 'nav.home' | 'posts.likes' | …
export const useT = (): Translator<AppCatalog> => useI18n<AppCatalog>();

One call	Because
validates + flattens every locale before registering any	a malformed catalog fails the boot whole, never half
registers the framework catalog under en first, the app's second	later wins, so app strings override framework strings
configureLocales({ supported, fallback })	the locale set is declared once, not twice
returns { default, locales, catalogs, keys() }	the app's key space, for tests and tooling

A default outside locales is X_LOCALE_UNSUPPORTED — and a compile error before that.

Read a string

import { negotiateLocale, t } from '@ultimat3/i18n';

// per-request: the HTTP layer resolves the locale once
const locale = negotiateLocale(request.headers.get('accept-language')); // 'de'

// anywhere downstream — no locale argument, ever
t('pagination.showing', { from: 1, to: 20, total: 137 });
t('pagination.result', { count: 1 });   // "1 result"
t('pagination.result', { count: 9 });   // "9 results"
t('nav.settings');                      // "⟦nav.settings⟧" — fix it or ship it broken, visibly

Call	Returns	Use for
t(key, vars?)	string	one string, framework or app, untyped keys
useI18n<AppCatalog>()	Translator<AppCatalog>	a component rendering several — unknown key is a build error
translatorFor(locale)	Translator	an explicit locale: mail, a worker tick, a preview

Translator with no type argument keeps taking any string, which is what @ultimat3/ui and @ultimat3/mail are built against. has() and raw() stay permissive on purpose — a probe for a key that may not exist is what they are for.

Plurals are CLDR, not n === 1

Author two forms with key / key_plural, or all forms a locale needs with key_<category> where category is zero | one | two | few | many | other.

{ "files": { "n_one": "{count} plik", "n_few": "{count} pliki", "n_many": "{count} plików" } }

t('files.n', { count: 3 }) → 3 pliki, { count: 5 } → 5 plików. Selection runs through Intl.PluralRules, so Polish, Russian and Arabic work without a special case.

Suffixes are underscores on the leaf, never a nested { one, other } branch: the runtime probes files.n_few, and TranslationKey admits the stem files.n for exactly the same reason.

Catalogs

Author nested and feature-namespaced; defineCatalogs flattens to dot-keys and rejects a non-string leaf with X_CATALOG_INVALID. Registration order is framework then app — later wins, which is how an app overrides errors.notFound.title without forking the framework.

src/catalogs/en.json ships the framework's own strings: errors.*, auth.*, pagination.*, admin.*, validation.*, common.*, time.cron.*.

It is registered under en and no other locale — the golden rule applies to framework strings too. An app shipping es that has not translated errors.notFound.title renders ⟦errors.notFound.title⟧ there, not Page not found: filling every locale with the English catalog is a fallback chain, it reads as isMiss === false, and assertCatalogsComplete cannot see it because CatalogSet.catalogs carries app strings only. Translate the framework keys your app renders into your own catalog — that is the one path, and it is the same merge an override is.

Enforcement

extractKeys() scans source for t('...') calls; auditCatalogs() reports keys used, keys missing per locale, and keys defined but never used; assertCatalogsComplete() is the x verify gate.

X_CATALOG_MISSING_KEYS: catalog is incomplete
  cause: packages/i18n/catalogs/es.json is missing 2 key(s) used in source: admin.nav.jobs, common.save
  fix:   x i18n sync es

Errors

Code	When
X_LOCALE_UNSUPPORTED	a tag outside the supported set was asserted, or a defineCatalogs default that is not one of its locales
X_CATALOG_MISSING_KEYS	a shipped locale lacks a key the source uses
X_CATALOG_INVALID	non-string leaf, bad key segment, or a dotted/nested collision

Why it exists

Retrofitting i18n means touching every string in the app. Structuring for many locales on day one costs nothing; the loud-miss rule is what keeps it honest once there are two.