I18n Agent

What i18n-agent does

i18n-agent provides MCP access to a translation service for AI development environments. The i18n-agent MCP server accepts direct text translation requests and can translate files while retaining relevant source structure. It supports JSON, YAML, CSV, XML, HTML, Markdown, Java properties, plain text, PDF, Word documents, and gettext files such as PO, POT, and MO.

Translations can target 48 listed languages and regional variants, including English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, and several regional forms. Requests can include audience, industry, and regional context, such as a technical audience, a finance context, or Brazilian Portuguese. The service also supports source-content analysis before translation and can report supported languages with quality ratings.

How it works

The package installs an MCP client configuration for supported AI IDEs and connects to the translation endpoint defined by the setup. A user can ask an AI client to translate text, preserve a file's structure, check translation credits, estimate word counts, or analyze source content before translation.

Large work is handled asynchronously. Files over 50KB and requests containing more than 100 texts can receive a job identifier instead of an immediate result. The client polls for completion and exposes status and progress updates; longer operations use timeouts of roughly five to ten minutes. File-specific handling includes preserving nested JSON structures, YAML formatting and comments, CSV quoting, Markdown formatting while skipping code, and extracting text from XML or HTML.

The service charges one credit per word, listed as $0.01 per word in the usage guidance. Credit balance and word-count estimates can be checked before starting a larger job.

Setup and configuration

Install the package with npx @i18n-agent/mcp-client install. The installer detects available supported IDEs and writes platform-specific MCP configuration. Named integrations include Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Codex, and Antigravity.

An API key is required. Obtain it from app.i18nagent.ai, then expose it as I18N_AGENT_API_KEY and restart the IDE. Manual configurations also specify MCP_SERVER_URL, shown in the documentation as https://mcp.i18nagent.ai. Claude Code users can install through the marketplace after setting the API key.

If automatic setup fails, the package can be configured manually with a Node command, the client script path, the service URL, and the API key. The troubleshooting notes also cover Node version managers and provide a wrapper-script approach for Claude Code connection failures.

Tools and capabilities

The i18n-agent MCP server supports these task categories:

• Translate text with audience, industry, and regional context.
• Translate supported files while preserving format-specific structure.
• Process large translations asynchronously and monitor job progress.
• List supported languages and quality ratings.
• Analyze source content for potential translation issues.
• Check credit balances and estimate word counts.

Quality warnings are enabled by default during source analysis. Automated workflows can set skipWarnings: true, but the documentation cautions that bypassing warnings can reduce translation quality.

Limitations and notes

Translation is limited to the 48 languages and variants listed by the service. Costs are based on translated word count, so large jobs should be checked against the available credit balance first. Long-running jobs depend on asynchronous status polling and may use extended timeouts.

The package documentation names specific IDE integrations, but does not provide a complete compatibility list for every MCP client. Manual setup may be needed when automatic IDE detection does not find the expected configuration directory. Keep quality warnings enabled for production-oriented translation workflows unless an automated process has a deliberate reason to skip them.