Is the stringlane CLI free?

Yes. There is no licence key and no activation, and it does not read one: use it on as many machines, projects and CI runners as you like, including at work. It is versioned and licensed separately from the desktop app, and buying the app grants nothing on the CLI in either direction.

Does the CLI need the desktop app installed?

No. It is a standalone package with no dependency on the app, and the two never talk to each other. They agree because they run the same engine over the same files and the same stringlane.yaml, not because one is driving the other.

Which file formats does the CLI support?

The same five as the app: iOS .strings with its companion .stringsdict, Xcode .xcstrings String Catalogs, Flutter ARB, Android XML, and i18next JSON.

The stringlane CLI

Check, plan, translate, add keys and locales, and write back through the same checks the desktop app runs, from your terminal, in CI, and inside a coding agent. Free, local, and it writes nothing into your repository that you did not ask for.

The desktop app tells you what is wrong with your translations while you are looking at them. The CLI tells your build.

It is the same engine underneath: the same parsers, the same validation rules, the same completion figures: one implementation, called from both surfaces rather than two copies that drift apart.

stringlane check .

What you get#

Point it at a project folder and it reports which locales are behind, which keys are missing, which translations are structurally broken, and sets an exit code your pipeline can branch on.

xcstrings · single-origin · base en (detected)
4 locales · 10 keys · 73% of strings filled
 
  de      8/8        complete
  en      10/10      complete
  fr      7/8        1 missing
  uk      1/8        7 missing
 
7 errors · 4 warnings · 0 info

Beyond that report, the CLI is also how a coding agent gets safe access to your localization files. stringlane mcp serves the project over the Model Context Protocol, so your agent can find exactly what needs translating and write it back through the same validation gate, instead of hand-editing files whose escaping it will get subtly wrong.

The commands#

Command	What it does	Writes?
`stringlane init`	Detects the project and writes `stringlane.yaml`	Yes, asks first
`stringlane inspect`	Every locale, how complete it is, and which files were read	No
`stringlane check`	The same report plus validation, and an exit code	No
`stringlane scan`	Finds keys your code no longer calls, and keys it calls that do not exist	No
`stringlane plan`	The exact list of what needs translating, for an agent to work from	No
`stringlane validate`	Checks an agent's translations without touching a file	No
`stringlane apply`	Writes them, all or nothing, and only if nothing moved	Yes, asks first
`stringlane update`	Translates the missing strings itself using your own provider key	Yes, asks first
`stringlane describe`	Writes key descriptions, so translations are made with context	Yes, asks first
`stringlane add-locale`	Creates the file for a locale the project does not have yet	Yes, asks first
`stringlane add-key`	Adds a key and its source string to the base locale, so every other locale reports it missing	Yes, asks first
`stringlane pluralize`	Gives an i18next key that shows a count its plural forms, in the base locale only	Yes, asks first
`stringlane context`	Shows or sets product, branding, locale and terminology context	Yes, asks first
`stringlane mcp`	Serves the project to a coding agent over MCP (stdio)	Through its tools
`stringlane baseline write`	Records today's issues, except stale and unconfirmed translations, so an unclean project can adopt the gate	Yes, asks first
`stringlane accept`	Confirms translations against today's base text, so `check` stops reporting them as stale or unconfirmed	Yes, asks first
`stringlane setup mcp`	Shows, or writes, your agent's MCP configuration	Only with `--apply`
`stringlane setup hooks`	Shows, or writes, the write guard in your agent's settings	Only with `--apply`
`stringlane setup rules`	Shows, or writes, the localization rules in your `AGENTS.md`	Only with `--apply`
`stringlane setup skills`	Shows, or writes, the agent plugin's skills into `.agents/skills`, for agents with no StringLane plugin	Only with `--apply`
`stringlane setup guard`	Prints the permission block that makes Zed or OpenCode ask before an agent edits a locale file	No, it prints
`stringlane hook`	Answers an agent host's pre-write hook. Your agent host runs it, not you	No
`stringlane upgrade`	Checks whether a newer version is published, and prints the command to install it	No
`stringlane telemetry`	Reports or changes whether usage data is sent, and shows the random install ID it carries	Local state only

Full flags and behaviour per command are in the CLI reference.

What it will not do#

The four read-only commands are read-only with respect to your repository. inspect, check, plan and validate write nothing inside your project: not a lock file, not a re-saved locale file, not a byte. The test suite snapshots every file's contents, size and modification time before and after, on Linux, macOS and Windows. What inspect, check, plan and validate do write goes to StringLane's own state directory, never into your repository: a random install ID, created on the first run unless DO_NOT_TRACK=1, STRINGLANE_TELEMETRY=0 or a CI runner turns usage data off; the date and result of the daily update check, unless that check is switched off; and, from check and scan, a cache that records every key name and line number found in each source file they scanned. Install and update lists everything that directory holds.

The commands that do write ask before they do, and refuse outright when there is no terminal to ask at unless you passed --yes. A CI job cannot accidentally commit a decision nobody made.

Nothing follows a symbolic link out of your project root: not the config, not the baseline, not --output, and not a path named inside a plan file. A repository that ships a redirect does not get to choose where an agent's translations land.

Where to go next#

Getting started walks from install to your first report.
Inspect and check covers the day-to-day reporting commands and the baseline.
Run it in CI covers exit codes and the JSON report.
The agent workflow covers MCP, agent setup is the one-paste route, and agent hosts says what each of the eight actually gets.
Translate with your own key covers stringlane update.

The stringlane CLI

What you get#

The commands#

What it will not do#

Where to go next#

Frequently asked questions