Advanced Patterns · Lingo.dev

Advanced patterns for CI/CD localization - workflow selection, translation completeness checks, and merge conflict resolution.

Choosing a workflow#

Four workflow patterns cover most team setups. Each has different trade-offs around automation, review overhead, and branch hygiene.

Workflow	Best for	Trade-off
Commit to main	Small teams, zero-friction updates	No review step for translations
PR from main	Teams that want to review translations	Requires manual PR approval
Commit to feature branch	Long-lived feature branches	Translation commits in branch history
PR from feature branch	Maximum control per feature	Multiple PRs per feature to manage

On GitHub, the Lingo.dev GitHub App handles most of these patterns for you server-side - it reacts to pushes and PRs, commits translations back, and needs no runner or secret. Reach for the CLI patterns below when you run localization inside your own pipeline.

Start with "Commit to main" if you're unsure. It's the simplest workflow and prevents merge conflicts entirely since there's no branch divergence.

Checking translation completeness#

The lingo check command verifies that all content is translated without generating new translations. It exits with a non-zero status code if any content is missing:

bash

lingo check

Use this as a deployment gate to prevent shipping untranslated content. Install the CLI with npm install -g @lingo.dev/cli (Node 22+) and authenticate the runner with a LINGO_API_KEY environment variable.

yaml

name: Check translations
on: [push, pull_request]
jobs:
  check:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22
      - run: npm install -g @lingo.dev/cli
      - run: lingo check
        env:
          LINGO_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.LINGO_API_KEY }}

Resolving merge conflicts#

Merge conflicts occur when the .lingo/lock.json file diverges between branches - typically when translations are updated independently in different branches.

Prevention#

Committing translations directly to main (instead of using feature branches for translations) eliminates lockfile conflicts entirely.

Resolution via merge#

Start the merge

bash

git merge <branch-name>

Delete the conflicting lockfile

bash

rm .lingo/lock.json

Complete the merge

bash

git add .
git merge --continue

Regenerate the lockfile

bash

lingo push --wait

Running lingo push --wait rebuilds .lingo/lock.json from the current state of your source files as part of the normal sync.

Resolution via rebase#

The same approach works with rebase - delete .lingo/lock.json during each conflict step, continue the rebase, then run lingo push --wait at the end to regenerate the lockfile:

bash

git rebase <branch-name>
# On each conflict: rm .lingo/lock.json && git add . && git rebase --continue
lingo push --wait

Next Steps#

GitHub App

Automate localization on GitHub with no runner

lingo push

Sync source content and translations

How It Works

The CI/CD localization pipeline

Setup

Configure CI/CD for your project