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Agent skill

Translations

by mendixlabs in mendixlabs/mxcli

Translate a Mendix app's user-visible strings with MDL — DESCRIBE TRANSLATIONS to export one file per language, CREATE [OR MODIFY|REPLACE] TRANSLATIONS to write them back.

Apache-2.0Auto-check passedWriting & Content

Install Translations

skills CLI
$ npx skills add mendixlabs/mxcli --skill translations -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install mendixlabs/mxcli translations --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mendixlabs/mxcli.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/.claude/skills/mendix/translations .claude/skills/translations && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
translations
GitHub stars
128
Token cost
~1.5k tokens
SKILL.md length
651 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
72
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
Apache-2.0

At a glance

Translate a Mendix app's user-visible strings with MDL — DESCRIBE TRANSLATIONS to export one file per language, CREATE [OR MODIFY|REPLACE] TRANSLATIONS to write them back.

  • Localising an app
  • SKILL.md covers The loop, Statements, The trap: a language that is… and Drift: a source string that…, plus 2 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md
  • Filling in a language with an LLM

What it does

Translations is an agent skill from mendixlabs/mxcli. Translate a Mendix app's user-visible strings with MDL — DESCRIBE TRANSLATIONS to export one file per language, CREATE [OR MODIFY|REPLACE] TRANSLATIONS to write them back. Use when localising an app, filling in a language with an LLM, or auditing which strings are still untranslated. Covers why a translation can be stored and still never appear.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.5k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Writing & Content, covering Translation. The repository describes itself as: Mendix cli tool, a headless way to work with Mendix projects. Enables Mendix projects for use with 3rd party agentic coding tools like Claude Code and Copilot. Includes a… The licence is Apache-2.0.

When your agent uses it

  • Localising an app
  • Filling in a language with an LLM
  • Auditing which strings are still untranslated

Example prompts

  • “/translations”

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 20a6c89. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md (its code samples are sql and bash).

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Translations loads about 1.5k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 90 tokens; SKILL.md has 651 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~90
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.5k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from mendixlabs/mxcli at commit 20a6c89, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© mendixlabs). 651 words, ~1,517 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/translations/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
translations
description
Translate a Mendix app's user-visible strings with MDL — DESCRIBE TRANSLATIONS to export one file per language, CREATE [OR MODIFY|REPLACE] TRANSLATIONS to write them back. Use when localising an app, filling in a language with an LLM, or auditing which strings are still untranslated. Covers why a translation can be stored and still never appear.

Translations

Every user-visible string of a Mendix app — page titles, widget captions, button labels, validation messages, enum captions, menu items — is a Texts$Text with one translation per language. MDL treats them in bulk: one file per language.

The loop

bash
# 1. export: an untranslated string comes back with an EMPTY target
mxcli -p app.mpr -c "describe translations for de_DE" > de_DE.mdl

# 2. fill in the right-hand sides (by hand, or hand the file to an LLM)

# 3. write them back
mxcli exec de_DE.mdl -p app.mpr

That is the whole design: DESCRIBE emits the CREATE form, so the export format and the import format are the same file, and the empty targets are the prompt.

Statements

sql
describe translations [in <Module> | without marketplace] for <lang>;

create translations            [in <Module> | without marketplace] for <lang> ( 'src' as 'target', ... );
create or modify translations  [in <Module> | without marketplace] for <lang> ( 'src' as 'target', ... );
create or replace translations [in <Module> | without marketplace] for <lang> ( 'src' as 'target', ... );

Entries use as, not a colon: a translation maps a user-provided name to another name.

verbmeaning
createthe "add a language" form — refuses if that language already has translations anywhere in scope
create or modifymerge; a source string the file does not name keeps whatever it has
create or replacethe file is authoritative — a translation whose source the file does not name is removed, and the run names what it deleted

IN <Module> scopes both directions, and under OR REPLACE it bounds the deletion — without it, a set of per-module files would wipe each other on every run.

Translating the app, not its Marketplace modules: add without marketplace. Without in, a run reaches the whole project — Marketplace modules, and the Atlas page templates and building blocks in them, included. A module update replaces a Marketplace module's contents, so translations written there are lost at the next update and show up as unexpected diffs until then. The unscoped run warns with a per-module count; without marketplace keeps the run in the app's own modules and names the file's entries it left alone. Use it on describe as well, so the file it emits carries the clause.

The trap: a language that is not enabled

A translation for a language the project has not enabled is stored, passes mx check, and is discarded at build time. Measured with mxbuild --target=deploy: the string reaches nothing under deployment/ — no translations_<code>.properties is produced at all — while the model and Studio Pro both keep it happily.

So translating 400 strings into German can produce exactly no German in the app. create translations warns when the language is not enabled; enable it in project settings first (see the project-settings skill), then re-run.

A stock app makes this easy to hit by accident: it enables one language while its marketplace modules ship translations in nine, so "other languages already have translations here" is true and misleading.

list languages lists languages that have translations, not the enabled ones — a stock app reports 8 while 1 is enabled. describe settings has the enabled list.

Show full SKILL.md (235 more words)Show less

Drift: a source string that was edited

The dictionary is keyed on the source string, so Save is translated once for all the places it occurs. The flip side: editing a source string after the file was written stops it matching, which would leave the translation attached to a string that no longer exists.

A key that matches nothing is reported, not skipped — and where the translation identifies the moved source unambiguously, the run names the fix:

Warning: 1 source string(s) in the file matched nothing in the project.

  "Thingz" as "Grejer"
      No text has "Thingz" as its source. A text now reads "Things" and carries
      the sv_SE "Grejer" — the source was probably edited. Change the file to:
        "Things" as "Grejer"

Notes

  • Scale. A whole app is a few hundred distinct source strings (411 on a real project measured), so one file per language is comfortably practical.
  • A rewrite does not lose other languages. Re-executing a page or microflow keeps the translations MDL cannot express; you do not have to re-import a language after editing a document.
  • The source language is the project's default: the left-hand column is what DESCRIBE shows for that language, so change DefaultLanguageCode before exporting if you want a different source. It is also the language a new caption is written in — Caption: 'Opslaan' is stored under the default, so set it before authoring pages, not after. Changing it later does not move text that already exists, and nothing warns: mx check is 0 errors either way (mendixlabs/mxcli#970). Re-running the create statements fixes it. See project-settings.
  • Translating into the source language is refused — it would overwrite the strings everything else is keyed on.

Common tasks

sql
mdl 1;
-- what is still untranslated, and how much
describe translations for de_DE;        -- ends with "N source string(s), M translated, K to go."

-- one module at a time
describe translations in Sales for de_DE;

-- make a file authoritative for one module only
create or replace translations in Sales for de_DE ( 'Order' as 'Bestellung' );

-- remove a language's translations entirely
create or replace translations for de_DE ( );

© mendixlabs, Apache-2.0. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in .claude/skills/mendix/translations of mendixlabs/mxcli.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 20a6c89

Compare with similar skills

Translations next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Translations compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Translations this skillmendixlabs/mxcli128—~1.5kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Translation Diff ExportDevolutions/UniGetUI26k—~1.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Sync Translationssymfony/symfony31k—~1.9kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Translation Diff ImportDevolutions/UniGetUI26k—~750Automated safety check: PassMIT
Translation Diff TranslateDevolutions/UniGetUI26k—~934Automated safety check: PassMIT
Generate Translationspayloadcms/payload45k—~1.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Categories

Questions about Translations

What does Translations do?

Translate a Mendix app's user-visible strings with MDL — DESCRIBE TRANSLATIONS to export one file per language, CREATE [OR MODIFY|REPLACE] TRANSLATIONS to write them back. Translations is an agent skill from mendixlabs/mxcli. Translate a Mendix app's user-visible strings with MDL — DESCRIBE TRANSLATIONS to export one file per language, CREATE [OR MODIFY|REPLACE] TRANSLATIONS to write them back.

When should I use Translations?

Translations fits situations like: localising an app; filling in a language with an LLM; auditing which strings are still untranslated.

How do I install Translations in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add mendixlabs/mxcli --skill translations -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (.claude/skills/mendix/translations in mendixlabs/mxcli) into .claude/skills/translations in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Translations in Codex?

Run `npx skills add mendixlabs/mxcli --skill translations -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (.claude/skills/mendix/translations in mendixlabs/mxcli) into .agents/skills/translations in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Translations in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add mendixlabs/mxcli --skill translations -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/translations, .gemini/skills/translations, .github/skills/translations and .opencode/skills/translations in your project.

What does Translations need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Translations is instructions for the agent only.

Does Translations access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Translations safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Translations use?

Translations is published under the Apache-2.0 licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Translations use?

About 1.5k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 6.1k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Translations?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Translations: Translation Diff Export (Devolutions/UniGetUI, 26k stars), Sync Translations (symfony/symfony, 31k stars), Translation Diff Import (Devolutions/UniGetUI, 26k stars) and Translation Diff Translate (Devolutions/UniGetUI, 26k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Translations?

mendixlabs (a GitHub organization) maintains it in mendixlabs/mxcli, which has 128 GitHub stars. The repository holds 72 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 7, 2026.

Source: mendixlabs/mxcli on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.