Language Configuration

Each target language can have specific translation rules that are automatically included in Claude’s prompts. These rules handle language-specific typography, punctuation conventions, and stylistic guidelines.

Supported languages¶

Current rules¶

Chinese (Simplified) — zh-cn¶

• Use proper full-width Chinese punctuation marks (，：。！？) not ASCII punctuation (,.!?) in prose text

Farsi — fa¶

• Use proper Persian punctuation marks (، ؛ ؟) without any RTL directionality markup

• Keep technical terms and code examples in English/Latin script

• Use formal/academic Persian style appropriate for educational content

French — fr¶

• Use French guillemets « » (with a non-breaking space inside each) for quotations rather than straight or curly double quotes

• Insert a non-breaking space before the high punctuation marks ; : ! ? as required by French typography

How rules are applied¶

Language rules are appended to every translation prompt as numbered rules after the standard instructions. For example, when translating to zh-cn, Claude’s prompt includes:

CRITICAL RULES:
1. Preserve all MyST Markdown formatting...
2. DO NOT translate code, math, URLs...
...
9. Use proper full-width Chinese punctuation marks (，：。！？) not ASCII punctuation

Rules apply to all translation modes: UPDATE (incremental sync), NEW (full file), and RESYNC (drift recovery).

Using unsupported languages¶

Any language code can be used as a target-language — it doesn’t need to be pre-configured. If no configuration exists, the action uses the language code as-is with no additional rules. You can still provide a glossary for terminology consistency.

Adding a new language¶

To add rules for a new language, edit src/language-config.ts:

export const LANGUAGE_CONFIGS: Record<string, LanguageConfig> = {
  'zh-cn': { /* ... */ },
  'fa': { /* ... */ },

  // Add new language:
  'ja': {
    code: 'ja',
    name: 'Japanese',
    additionalRules: [
      'Use proper Japanese punctuation marks (、。「」)',
    ],
  },
};

Each language configuration has:

• code — Language code (matches the target-language input)

• name — Human-readable language name

• additionalRules — Array of rules appended to translation prompts

After adding a language configuration, you should also:

1. Create a glossary file at glossary/{code}.json (see Glossary)

2. Add test cases for the new language

3. Rebuild the action (npm run build)