Coding agents — Lingvo

What Lingvo adds

You can ask Claude Code to translate your files today. It can read project instructions, use skills, run your checks and open a pull request. If that already covers your localization workflow, you may not need another service.

Lingvo is useful when localization becomes a recurring release task. It gives your agents and your browser workflow the same stored project context, translation state and QA results. The value is the workflow you can reuse and maintain across releases.

An agent in your repository, with and without Lingvo
The job	Agent + your repository	What Lingvo provides
Keep wording consistent	Keep glossary and instructions in files, and build them into your prompts or skills.	A stored style guide and glossary, assembled into a translation brief with string context, placeholders, length limits and target-language plural categories.
Review the suggestions	Review the file diff or pull request using your team’s conventions.	A proposal queue beside the current source and translation. Accepting a proposal creates a translated entry; approving it is a separate decision. Pending proposals stay out of exports.
Check every release	Write and maintain scripts or choose localization validators, then wire them into CI.	Repeatable checks for supported placeholders, plural forms and configured constraints, plus per-language readiness. The same QA findings are available in the browser, CLI and MCP.
Keep the repository in sync	Have the agent edit each format, and maintain your own import, export and conflict handling.	A configured push/pull workflow for supported localization formats, with previews, conflict checks and a QA command that can fail your build.

Claude Code’s own documentation covers file editing, skills, tests and translation in CI.

A release in practice

Suppose you change the wording of a checkout button. Your agent can translate the new text. With Lingvo, you can request a brief for translations whose source has changed, include your preferred terminology, collect proposals for review, check each locale and pull the resulting translations into the app.

Code

lingvo push --dry-run
lingvo push
# Request proposals and review them in Lingvo.
lingvo qa --fail-on-error
lingvo pull --dry-run
lingvo pull

Structural QA cannot guarantee a natural translation or catch every runtime defect. Keep language review, app tests and your release checks. Lingvo’s MCP permissions also do not restrict an agent’s independent shell access.

When it is worth adding

An agent alone may be enough

You need a one-off translation, have a small set of locale files, or already have glossary, review and validation working well in Git. Keep that workflow if it serves you.

Add Lingvo when the workflow starts repeating

You ship language changes regularly, need a clear queue of translations to review, or want several people and agents to work from the same project state. Lingvo is a choice to use a maintained localization workflow instead of assembling all of it yourself.

What you pay for

Start on Free. Basic agent access, manual review, QA and your own provider keys remain available. Paid plans expand project and owner/admin seat limits and include more platform machine-translation credits. Reading a brief or submitting a proposal does not spend Lingvo MT credits; your agent’s own usage charges still apply.

Compare the current plans and limits

Connect your agent

Best for working alongside your code. Your client starts Lingvo in the repository and uses your CLI sign-in.

Prepare your project

Install the Lingvo CLI

Sign in and configure

lingvo login --device
lingvo init

New to Lingvo? Create your hosted project and push your strings first.

Connect your client

Run in your repository

lingvo agent install --client claude

Already have a client config? Preview with --print and merge the Lingvo entry. The installer refuses to replace existing files by default.

Restart your client in this repository so it reads the new configuration.

Check it, then try it

Check the connection

claude mcp list

If lingvo shows Pending approval, start claude in this repository and approve only the Lingvo server from the project's .mcp.json. Run claude mcp list again and confirm lingvo shows Connected. Seeing it listed or getting a successful command result alone does not mean the connection is healthy.

Replace <project slug> with your Lingvo project. Require a successful project_status result with actual counts. This read needs qa:run and access to that project; strings:read alone is insufficient. Client approval and Lingvo permissions are separate checks.

Your first prompt

Use Lingvo project_status for <project slug> and summarize its translation readiness. Do not change files or spend credits. If the tool is refused, report the refusal and stop.

Connection troubleshooting and protocol details

MCP setup, tool schemas and troubleshooting

What it gets to read

An agent can read context from your repository. Lingvo also assembles the localization context stored with the project, so your client can request it for the strings and language it is working on.

translation_brief hands an agent the same bundle Lingvo assembles for a paid provider:

Your style guide, verbatim — the standing instructions you would otherwise repeat to every translator.
The glossary terms that actually occur in the text being translated, including the ones marked do-not-translate.
The CLDR plural categories the target language uses, so the requested forms are explicit.
Each string's developer context, its length budget, its placeholders — and where it appears in your own source, with the line.
What the target locale holds right now, so a re-translation or a changes-requested fix has something to improve on.

It is free, read-only, and spends no credits.

What it cannot do

The MCP catalogue does not include a translation-approval tool or controls for members, billing, provider keys or tokens. This narrows what the Lingvo connection can do; it is not a sandbox for an agent that also has shell access.

The proposal tools keep suggestions separate from stored translations until a person accepts them. Other tools can update source strings or context, start machine translation, or write local files, subject to their own permissions and confirmation rules. A source push can obsolete keys when its explicit confirmation matches the removal count.

For a fleet that runs without you, an agent connection carries its own scopes, a project allowlist, an autonomy level and a credit budget — all resolved on every single call, so demoting the person who created it narrows the agent within one request.

Your coding agent. Your localization context.