Localization

Then extract the translations:

This will output the given locale files in the directories specified in the config file above. In this case:

src/
└── plugins/
    └── reviews/
        └── dashboard/
            └── i18n/
                ├── en.po
                └── de.po

Since we set the "sourceLocale" to be "en", the en.po file will already be complete. You'll then need to open up the de.po file and add German translations for each of the strings, by filling out the empty msgstr values:

Reducing merge conflicts in your .po files

The #: comment above each message records where the string was found, down to the line number. Those line numbers are recalculated on every extraction, so any edit that shifts code up or down rewrites them — adding one import at the top of a file changes the recorded line of every string below it, even though none of the strings themselves changed.

If several people work on the same plugin, this can make the .po files a recurring source of merge conflicts that have nothing to do with the translations. You can turn the line numbers off by passing an explicit PO formatter to your config:

The references then keep the file path and drop the line number, which is usually enough context for a translator to find the string:

The next npx lingui extract rewrites every reference in your catalogs, so expect one large diff when you first make this change. After that the references only change when a string genuinely moves to a different file.

Contributing a translation of the Dashboard itself

The sections above cover localizing your own extensions. If instead you want to translate the built-in Dashboard UI into a new language — or improve an existing translation — those catalogs live in the Vendure repository and the change is contributed via a pull request.

The Dashboard's own message catalogs live at packages/dashboard/src/i18n/locales/{locale}.po, one .po file per supported language. The English catalog (en.po) is the source and is always complete; the others are translations of it.

Improving an existing translation

Open the catalog for the language you want to improve — for example de.po for German — and fill in or correct the msgstr values. An empty msgstr means that string is not yet translated and falls back to English at runtime.

Adding a new language

1. Add the locale code to the locales array in packages/dashboard/lingui.config.js. It must be a valid LanguageCode value, which uses underscores for region variants (zh_Hans, pt_BR).

2. Add the same locale to defaultAvailableLanguages in packages/dashboard/vite/constants.ts. The Display language selector is built from this list, so a catalog missing from it can never be selected.

3. From packages/dashboard, generate the catalog:

   npm

   pnpm

   yarn

   bun

   npx lingui extract

   This creates src/i18n/locales/{locale}.po with every UI string and empty msgstr values. Use npx lingui extract rather than npm run i18n:extract, which also runs an LLM helper that writes an untracked missing-translations.txt.

4. Fill in the msgstr values. The Dashboard globs that directory, so nothing else needs registering.

Testing your translation locally

Run the development server so you can see your translations in the running Dashboard:

bun run dev prints the Dashboard URL when it starts — open that. It serves from Vite, so .po edits are picked up on reload (the static build served by DashboardPlugin would need a rebuild). Then switch the UI language from the user menu at the bottom of the sidebar → Display language, and choose your locale. The interface re-renders with your catalog; any string you left untranslated shows the English source.

Opening the pull request

Commit the changed .po file(s) (and, for a new language, the lingui.config.js and vite/constants.ts changes) and open a PR against master. A translation change is a fix, so title it accordingly, e.g. fix(dashboard): add Ukrainian UI translations. Translations are always welcome, including partial ones — you don't have to translate every string to contribute.

Two CI checks gate a translation PR: dashboard i18n sync (runs lingui extract and fails if the committed catalogs are out of date) and i18n:check (per-locale catalog validation). Run npx lingui extract from packages/dashboard and commit the result so the sync check stays green.