Retranslation

lingo push only translates what changed: it hashes each source against the lockfile and skips anything that matches. That's the right default, but sometimes you want to retranslate content whose source text is identical — after switching the engine's model, updating its rules or glossary, or fixing a quality issue.

There are two ways to force that: a scoped --force push, or purge followed by a normal push.

Force a scoped push#

--force retranslates every matching target, ignoring existing translations and server-side cache. It requires a scope — bare lingo push --force is rejected so you can't accidentally retranslate the whole project.

One file#

lingo push content/en/landing.mdx --force

A subtree#

lingo push 'content/en/**/*.md' --force

Everything#

lingo push --backfill-missing --force --yes

--force prompts before overwriting; pass --yes to skip the prompt (CI). See lingo push for the full flag reference.

Retranslate a single locale#

push has no per-locale flag. To redo just one language, delete its files and backfill:

lingo purge --locale fr
lingo push --backfill-missing

purge removes the fr targets; --backfill-missing then regenerates only what's missing — the other locales are untouched. This is also cheaper than --force, because everything except fr stays a cache hit. See Purge.

Estimate before you spend#

Any push accepts --estimate, which prices the run and exits without translating:

lingo push 'content/en/**/*.md' --force --estimate

Estimates are heuristic, not a quote — final cost may differ.

When to retranslate#