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Use cases

OSS projects

Learn how to use Localizeflow to translate your open source documentation.

Open source projects often begin with a single README.

As your community grows, contributors from different countries ask for translations. Maintaining README.ko.md, README.fr.md, and other language files manually quickly becomes difficult.

Localizeflow keeps your README and documentation synchronized automatically through pull requests without changing your existing workflow.

Prerequisites

  • A GitHub account.
  • Access to the GitHub organization or repository you want to translate.

Installing the Localizeflow GitHub App on a GitHub organization requires that you are an organization owner. If you are not an owner, share this page with an owner and ask them to complete the installation step for you.

Prepare your repository (optional)

If you already maintain manual translations (e.g. README.ko.md or docs/ja/), remove them before enabling automation so your default language remains the single source of truth.

Sign in and install the Localizeflow GitHub App

  1. Visit localizeflow.com.

  2. Sign in with GitHub. Sign in with GitHub

  3. Select Install in new account.

  4. Choose the account where you want to install the Localizeflow GitHub App — your personal account or an organization you manage.

    Installing the app in a GitHub organization requires organization owner permissions. If you are not an owner, share this page with an owner and ask them to complete the installation step for you.

  5. Select the repositories you want Localizeflow to access, then choose Save. Select repo and save

  6. You will be redirected to the Localizeflow dashboard.

If an organization owner installed the Localizeflow GitHub App, they can invite teammates from the Team page in the sidebar, either by sending email invitations or sharing an invite link.

Team

To add more repositories later, select your account in the header and choose + Add more repositories. Add more repositories

Connect your repositories to Localizeflow

  1. On the Localizeflow home page, select + Connect repositories. Select connect repositories

  2. Select one or more repositories, then select Save.

  3. Connected repositories will appear on both the Home and Repositories pages.

Run your first translation

After connecting your repository, select it from the dashboard to open the onboarding wizard.

The wizard takes less than two minutes and defines:

  • Which languages
  • Terms that must remain unchanged

Step 1: Languages & target branch

Target languages

Select one or more target languages.
Localizeflow will generate and maintain pull requests for each selected language.

You can modify languages later from the repository settings.

Target branch

Choose the branch where translation pull requests should be opened.

  • In most cases, use your default branch (for example, main).
  • If you use a staging or documentation branch, select that instead.

If left empty, Localizeflow uses the repository’s default branch.

Step 1 – Select languages and target branch

Select Continue.

Step 2: Output location

Select project type

Most open source repositories consist of:

  • A root README.md
  • A simple docs/ folder
  • Markdown-based content without a documentation framework

Select:

  • Simple repository

Step 2 – Select project type

Advanced users who want to manually define source and target paths can choose Structured documentation site to configure translation groups directly.

Translation options

You can enable additional processing:

  • Markdown (default)
  • Image translation (beta) (not available for documentation sites)
  • Notebook translation
  • Add disclaimer to translations

For most open source projects, we recommend:

  • Markdown only (for README-focused repositories)
  • Markdown + notebook translation (if your project includes Jupyter notebooks or examples)

This keeps community-facing documentation accessible without increasing maintenance overhead.

Select Continue.

Step 3: Glossaries & final checklist

Before automation begins, you can define terms that must remain unchanged during translation.

Glossaries help preserve:

  • Product names
  • Company names
  • Feature names
  • Legal or compliance phrases

Add one term per line. Each term remains unchanged in generated translations.

Example:

Localizeflow
Co-op Translator
GitHub App

You can edit or attach additional glossaries later.

Final checklist

Before selecting Save & Finish, verify:

  • Source paths correctly match your Markdown file locations.
  • Existing manual translations will not conflict with generated output.
  • Outdated translated folders have been removed if necessary.

This checklist helps prevent duplicate files and broken links.

Start automation

After selecting Save & Finish, you will be redirected to the repository detail page.

Translation does not begin automatically.

To start automatic translation:

  1. Select Automate.
  2. Localizeflow scans your repository.
  3. Translation jobs are generated.
  4. Draft pull requests are opened automatically.

Automation is disabled by default.

Once enabled, Localizeflow automatically opens and updates translation pull requests whenever your source README or documentation changes.

Contributors can review translation changes just like any other pull request.

You can pause automation at any time using Pause automate.