Decision Pools
A decision pool decides who reviews an engine's translations when human review is on: your own team in the Queue, or professional translators from a review provider. Each engine sends each language - and, if you want, each directory - to one pool, so legal copy can go to your counsel's reviewers, German to your Berlin team, and everything else to external translators.
Pools live under Settings → Decision pools. Engines choose them in the Human review step of their Pipeline tab.
Enterprise
Decision pools work together with human review, which comes with the Enterprise plan. See Plans and permissions.
Kinds of pools#
| Kind | Who reviews | How it's billed |
|---|---|---|
| Internal | Your teammates, in the Queue | Included in your plan |
| External - Lingo.dev | Professional reviewers for each language, ordered on Lingo.dev's account | Per word, through your Lingo.dev plan |
| External - your provider account | Translators from your own account with a review provider, such as BLEND | By the provider, directly to you |
Internal pools#
An internal pool lists the teammates who are emailed when a review in their languages is waiting. Each member can be limited to some languages; a member with no languages gets every language.
Membership controls notifications, not access. Anyone whose role allows reviewing translations can open and decide any review in the Queue, whichever pool it was sent to. Members whose role doesn't allow reviewing are not emailed - the pool form marks them can't review.
External pools#
An external pool sends each review to a professional translator, one order per document and language. The translator's text comes back into the run like a teammate's review.
- On Lingo.dev's account - no provider account needed. Reviews are billed per word through your Lingo.dev plan.
- On your own provider account - reviews are ordered on, and billed by, a provider account your organization connected in Settings → Integrations, such as a BLEND account.
Default pools#
Every organization has two pools you can use without setting anything up. Both are tagged Default and can't be archived.
| Pool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Your team | Internal. Emails everyone who can review |
| Lingo.dev external review | External, on Lingo.dev's account |
Create a pool#
Open Decision pools
Go to Settings → Decision pools and select Add.
Choose the type
Pick Internal or External. The type can't be changed after the pool is created.
Name it
The name is how the pool reads when an engine routes its review to it. It must be unique among your active pools, up to 100 characters.
Add members or choose a provider
For an internal pool, add people and, optionally, the languages each one is emailed about. At least one member must be able to review.
For an external pool, choose Lingo.dev, or choose your provider and the Account reviews are ordered and billed on. If no account is connected yet, pick Connect another account - you return to the pool form when you're done. Connecting an account needs an organization admin.
Create it
Select Create. The pool is ready for engines to use.
Edit a pool#
Open the pool's … menu and select Edit. You can rename any pool you created and change an internal pool's members. An external pool's provider and account are fixed - create a new pool to use a different one.
A member who has left the organization is marked No longer in the organization. Remove them before saving the pool.
Archive a pool#
Select Archive in the pool's … menu. Once archived, no engine can send review to the pool. Reviews it already received keep their history.
A pool can't be archived while any engine routes to it - the dialog lists those engines. Move their review to another pool first. Archiving can't be undone.
Route an engine's review to pools #
Open the engine, go to its Pipeline tab, and open the Human review step's settings. Under Decision pools, each card sends one pool the reviews for:
- Languages - the target languages it covers. Any language covers all of them.
- Directories - the parts of your repository it covers, such as
docs/legal. Any directory covers everything. Suggestions come from the engine's recent documents.
Select Add decision pool for another card. Each pool can appear on only one card - put all of a pool's languages and directories on the same card.
The most specific card wins#
When more than one card covers a translation, the engine picks:
- The card with the longest matching directory. A card for
docs/legalbeats a card fordocs, which beats Any directory. - Among cards for the same directory, the closest language: an exact match first, then the more specific parent language, then Any language.
Languages match by family:
| Card language | Covers de | Covers de-DE | Covers de-CH |
|---|---|---|---|
de | Yes | Yes | Yes |
de-DE | Yes | Yes | No |
de-CH | No | No | Yes |
Conflicts#
Two cards conflict when they cover the same directory and the same language, and neither is more specific than the other - for example, two cards for docs that both include fr. The form marks the overlapping cards and won't save until you resolve them. A card for de and one for de-CH, or one for de-DE and one for de-CH, never conflict.
Translations no card covers#
Translations into languages or directories no pool covers ship without human review. To review everything, add a card with Any language and Any directory.
The same settings hold the Timeout and Quality threshold for the step - see Timeout and Quality threshold. With a threshold set, only covered translations that score below it go to their pool.
Each card shows who it reaches - for example Emails everyone who can review or Billed per word - and warns when an internal pool has no one for some of the card's languages.
An engine that has never had cards saved starts with one card that sends every language to Your team or to Lingo.dev external review, depending on how its human review was set up before.
When a pool changes#
Routes are read when a localization job starts, so editing an engine's cards doesn't move reviews that are already waiting. A job can't start while the engine routes to a pool that was archived - pick another pool on that card first.
What reviewers see#
Email#
When reviews are waiting in an internal pool, its members get an email linking to the Queue: Your team emails everyone who can review, and other internal pools email the members whose languages match. Reviews that arrive close together are grouped into one email rather than sent one by one. External pools don't send email.
To stop these emails, turn off Review emails under Settings → Notifications. The setting is per person and per organization.
Deciding a review#
Reviews appear in the Queue. For each one, a reviewer either approves the translation as-is or edits it and approves - the button counts the edits, as in Approve with 2 edits. Edits must keep placeholders unchanged. There is no reject: to replace a translation, edit it. A decision is final, and the run continues from there.
A review nobody decides before the step's timeout ships the translation it was given.
External orders#
A review sent to an external pool also appears in the Queue, with the provider - Lingo external for Lingo.dev's account - and, for your own account, what the order costs. Someone who can review translations can Take over this review and decide every remaining string themselves. Taking over is free while no translator has started; once one has, their fee stands.
When an external review can't be completed - for example, the provider account is out of credits or was disconnected - the run keeps the translations it had and shows a warning saying why.
Costs#
- Lingo.dev's account - billed per word through your plan's usage, under Post-localization human review.
- Your own account - billed by the provider. Lingo.dev shows each order's cost in the Queue and in the engine's run log, and the month's total under Settings → Usage → Billed by providers.
- Internal - no per-review charge.
Plans and permissions #
| To | You need |
|---|---|
| See pools | Membership in the organization |
| Create, edit, or archive pools | The Manage decision pools permission |
| Use any pool | Human review - Enterprise plan |
| Create internal pools | Internal review - Enterprise plan |
| Create pools on your BLEND account | The BLEND integration - Enterprise plan |
| Connect a BLEND account | The Manage integrations permission |
| Decide reviews in the Queue | The Review translations permission |
The Owner role and the Full Access role have Manage decision pools. For other roles, an admin grants it in Settings → Roles - see Roles & Permissions. Without it, the Decision pools page is read-only.
Managing pools via MCP#
With the Lingo.dev MCP server, your AI coding assistant can list pools, create internal and external ones, rename them, change members, and archive them:
"Create an internal decision pool called German reviewers with
anna@example.com for de and ben@example.com for de-CH only."