Configuration · Resource Translator

Override the path with the configPath input if you need a non-default location.

Schema

# .github/resource-translator.yml
sourceLocale: en

# Provider config can be nested. Keep secrets in workflow inputs; use repo
# config for non-secret defaults like region, model, formality, or category.
provider:
  azure:
    categoryId: my-custom-translator-category
    apiVersion: "3.0"
    allowFallback: true

toLocales:
  - fr
  - de
  - es
include:
  - "src/**/*.en.json"
  - "apps/**/*.en.resx"
exclude:
  - "**/__tests__/**"
glossary:
  Acme: Contoso
  Octocat: Octocat   # keep brand names verbatim

# Translator request shape — most users can ignore these.
textType: plain                  # plain | html
profanityAction: NoAction        # NoAction | Marked | Deleted
profanityMarker: Asterisk        # Asterisk | Tag (only when profanityAction == Marked)

# Resilience — Translator returns 429 under load. Defaults are usually
# fine; tune only if your runs are large enough to hit them.
maxRetries: 5
retryBackoffMs: 30000             # cap on any single backoff sleep (ms)

# Placeholder protection. ON by default — wraps tokens like {{name}},
# {0}, %s, ${var} into sentinels before translation and restores them
# on the way back. Set false only when source intentionally contains
# placeholder-shaped literals.
protectPlaceholders: true
customPlaceholderPatterns:
  - "<<.+?>>"                     # any extra token syntax you use

# Per-key opt-out. Keys matching any glob are dropped from the request
# and pass through with the source value preserved.
noTranslatePatterns:
  - "errors.code.*"
  - "brands.*"

Field reference

provider

Type: "azure" | "aws" | "google" | provider block

Either a provider string or a nested provider block (provider.azure, provider.aws, or provider.google). Prefer nested blocks for provider-specific settings; keep secrets in workflow inputs rather than committed config.

sourceLocale

Type: string

Falls back to the sourceLocale input if not set. Also forwarded to Translator as from=<locale> so short strings aren't autodetected.

toLocales

Type: string[]

Either an array or a comma-separated string.

include / exclude

Type: string[]

Glob patterns evaluated against absolute and workspace-relative paths.

glossary

Type: map<string,string>

Post-translation term overrides. Word-boundary aware (handles C++, .NET).

categoryId

Type: string

Azure Custom Translator category — your industry/domain knob (legal, medical, marketing tone, etc.). Sent as ?category=....

textType

Type: "plain" | "html"

Defaults to plain. Use html only if your resource values contain real HTML fragments.

profanityAction

Type: "NoAction" | "Marked" | "Deleted"

How to treat profane terms in translated output.

profanityMarker

Type: "Asterisk" | "Tag"

Only meaningful when profanityAction is "Marked".

allowFallback

Type: boolean

Set to false to fail the translation when your categoryId has no deployment for a target locale instead of falling back to the general model.

apiVersion

Type: string

Translator REST API version. Defaults to 3.0.

awsFormality

Type: "FORMAL" | "INFORMAL"

AWS Translate formality setting for supported target languages.

awsBrevity

Type: boolean

Set to true to enable AWS Translate brevity mode for supported language pairs.

awsTerminologyNames / awsParallelDataNames

Type: string[]

AWS Translate custom terminology and parallel data resource names. Either an array or comma-separated string.

googleModel

Type: string

Google Cloud Translation model, e.g. nmt or base.

googleApiEndpoint

Type: string

Optional Google Cloud Translation API endpoint override.

googleAutoRetry

Type: boolean

Optional Google Cloud Translation automatic retry toggle. Leave unset to use the Google client default.

maxRetries

Type: integer

Maximum retry attempts on transient HTTP responses (408, 425, 429, 500, 502, 503, 504). Defaults to 5. Total HTTP calls per request is 1 + maxRetries.

retryBackoffMs

Type: integer

Cap (ms) on any single backoff sleep. Defaults to 30000. Azure's Retry-After header is honored exactly when present; otherwise jittered exponential backoff is used, capped at this value.

protectPlaceholders

Type: boolean

Defaults to true. When on, tokens like {{name}}, ${var}, {0}, {0:N2}, %s, %1$s and HTML entities are replaced with sentinel tokens before translation and restored afterward. Disable only when source intentionally contains placeholder-shaped literals.

customPlaceholderPatterns

Type: string[]

Extra regex patterns (without delimiters) added to the default placeholder set, e.g. <<.+?>> for custom token syntax. Invalid regexes are ignored.

noTranslatePatterns

Type: string[]

Glob patterns matched against parser-level keys (JSON dotted path, RESX name, PO msgid, XLIFF unit id, INI/restext key). Matching keys are dropped from the request and pass through with their source value preserved.

changeDetection

Type: "smart" | "disabled"

Defaults to smart. Uses the committed state manifest to translate only changed or missing parser keys. Set to disabled or false to preserve the legacy always-translate behavior.

statePath

Type: string

Path to the deterministic smart change-detection state manifest. Defaults to .github/resource-translator-state.json.

Loading order

The action reads explicit inputs from the workflow.
It loads the YAML config from configPath.
For every shared field, the input wins; otherwise the YAML value is used.
The merged values are validated. Invalid enums (e.g. profanityAction: Mask) cause the action to fail fast with a clear message.

Tone and industry, in plain terms

The Azure AI Translator v3 API does not have a single tone knob. Two settings combine to give you most of the same control:

Industry / domain: use categoryId to point at an Azure Custom Translator category trained on your own corpus — legal, technical, medical, marketing, or anything else. This is the strongest lever for tone, brand voice, and vocabulary.
Surface text: use the glossary to lock brand names and product terms verbatim, and use profanityAction to scrub profane terms when targeting localization for younger audiences.

Choose your language

Repository configuration

Schema

Field reference

Loading order

Tone and industry, in plain terms