Languages

Reloop CRM speaks seven languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese (Brazil), Turkish and Simplified Chinese. Every person picks one in Settings > General. The choice is that person's, not the workspace's, so two people in one CRM read two different languages.

English and German are written by people. The other five are machine translated. Every screen says so under the language select and links to the repository, because a better word from a native speaker is the point of shipping them.

How a language works

English is the key. A text in the code reads t("Add a contact"), and t() looks that English sentence up in the dictionary of the chosen language. A key that the dictionary does not hold falls back to English on its own. Nothing throws, nothing shows an empty box, and one missing key never blocks a release.

A dictionary is a folder of JSON files under apps/app/lib/i18n, one folder per language, named after the locale:

apps/app/lib/i18n/de/          German
apps/app/lib/i18n/es/          Spanish
apps/app/lib/i18n/fr/          French
apps/app/lib/i18n/pt-BR/       Portuguese (Brazil)
apps/app/lib/i18n/tr/          Turkish
apps/app/lib/i18n/zh-Hans/     Simplified Chinese

English has no folder. The key is the English text.

Each folder holds the same thirteen files. The split is only there to keep a file small enough to read:

A file is a flat object. The key is the English text, the value is your language:

{
	"Add a contact": "Kontakt hinzufügen",
	"{count} of {total} rows": "{count} von {total} Zeilen"
}

Add a language

You need no TypeScript for the translation itself. Two small files register the folder, and the rest is text.

1. Copy a folder. cp -r apps/app/lib/i18n/de apps/app/lib/i18n/it for Italian. Use the locale code you want the cookie and the CSV export to carry.
2. Translate the values. Leave every key exactly as it is. The key is the lookup, so one changed character makes the line fall back to English.
3. Register the code. Add your locale to LOCALES in packages/db/src/locale.ts, then add its native name to LOCALE.names, its BCP 47 tag to LOCALE.tags and the locale to either writtenByPeople or machineTranslated.
4. Register the files. In apps/app/lib/i18n/dictionaries.ts add the thirteen imports, one block in DICTIONARY_MODULES and one line in DICTIONARIES. Copy the block above yours and change the locale code. Both maps are checked against Locale, so bun run check-types fails until both hold your locale. You cannot forget one.
5. Run the checks. bun test in apps/app parses every file, compares every key against English and compares the placeholders. bunx biome check apps packages --write formats the JSON.

Rules for a value

• Keep every placeholder. {name}, {count} and {version} are replaced at runtime. Your sentence needs the same set the English key has, spelled the same way. Move them where your grammar wants them.
• Keep the proper nouns. Reloop, Slack, Gmail, IMAP, CSV, OpenRouter and every model name stay as they are.
• Write no dash. An em dash, an en dash and a horizontal bar are refused by the test suite. Use a full stop or a comma.
• Use the informal register, the way German uses "du". This is software for a sales team, not a bank letter.
• Leave no value empty. Delete the key instead: a missing key falls back to English, an empty value shows nothing.
• Ship all thirteen files, even when you translate only some of them. An empty file holds {} and is valid.

What the checks do

apps/app/test/dictionaries.spec.ts runs on every build.

• German fails the build when a key is missing. German is written by people and is complete, so a new t() call without a German line is a mistake.
• A machine translated language fails the build only on a structural fault: a file that does not parse, a key English does not have, a placeholder that does not match, a dash, or an empty value. A missing key is allowed and the test prints the coverage of each language.

That split is on purpose. A structural fault is a bug, and anybody fixes it in a minute. A missing key is a gap in a translation that already falls back to English, and one unfinished language must never hold up a release.

What stays English

• The CSV export. apps/api/src/exports/exports-copy.ts translates the column headers, the file name and the stored enum words into German only. A session in another language downloads an English file. The file is never half English and half something else.
• Two labels in packages/ui: the Loading label of the dot matrix and the Thinking label of the thinking indicator. Neither file carries a "use client" directive, so neither one reaches the translator.
• The month names on the dashboard chart. The API builds them with a fixed en-US formatter in apps/api/src/dashboard/dashboard.service.ts.
• What the agent writes. The agent writes English, or German with RELOOP_GERMAN. See docs/environment.md.