AI Suggestions

Overview

The AI suggestions feature drafts a translation for you using Google Gemini. You can request a suggestion for a single cell, or run a bulk pass — across one target language or all of them at once. The result always lands as a regular draft — accept it, edit it, or revert it like any other change. You stay in control.

You’ll need a Gemini API key to use this feature.

Setting up your API key

Go to aistudio.google.com and create a free API key.
In the app, open Settings (gear icon in the header).
Paste your key into the AI provider key section (Provider: Gemini) and click Save.

The key is stored in your operating system’s keychain on signed builds (encrypted at rest). In dev builds (tauri dev), the key lives in the Tauri Store instead — unsigned binaries trigger repeated keychain prompts, so this is intentional. Either way, the key is local to this app and never written to the repository or synced anywhere.

Per-cell suggestions

Click a target cell (any non-source cell).
Open the details sidebar on the right if it’s collapsed.
Under AI translation, click Suggest.

While the request runs, the button shows Suggesting… with a spinner. When the response lands, it’s written into the cell as a draft and focus jumps to the textarea with the caret at the end — ready for you to tweak or commit.

The Suggest button is disabled in two situations:

No API key configured — the section shows an “Add an AI key in Settings” link.
Source cell selected — the tooltip reads “Source language. Pick a target cell to translate.”

Repo-level system prompt

Each repo can set an aiSystemPrompt in its translations config (top-level field, ≤2000 characters). The prompt is prepended to every AI request originating from that repo.

Use it for tone and glossary nudges that apply project-wide:

“Use formal Ukrainian (вживайте «Ви»).”
“Brand name ‘Stape’ stays in English — never transliterate.”
“Match the playful voice of the marketing site; avoid corporate jargon.”

You configure the field through the wizard’s Edit project config flow.

Bulk AI translate

Need to draft many keys at once? Flip the filter sidebar to Bulk Actions.

Open the filter sidebar and switch the top toggle from Filter to Bulk Actions.
Choose a target language — or All languages to translate every target in one run.
Pick the set of rows to translate.
Start the run. The app calls Gemini in parallel batches with a progress indicator and lets you cancel mid-run.

Every result lands as a draft in the editor — review and accept them like any other edit.

Behind the scenes, bulk runs dispatch up to 3 batches in parallel, rotating across the selected target languages so the first few rows fill across every column before later rows do. Batch size adapts to the work in front of it — small jobs use small batches, large jobs ramp up to ~12 keys per batch — and the long ones go alone. Transient hiccups (rate limits, network blips) and Gemini-side output truncation are retried automatically; if a whole batch fails fatally, it’s split in half and each half is retried before any cell is marked as failed. The “(N retrying)” tag in the progress label tells you a transient issue is being worked on. Cells that don’t recover after all retries appear in the per-row error list at the bottom of the panel, and you can re-run them.

Tips

Short, clear strings work best. Long values with heavy formatting usually need a manual pass afterwards.
The model’s only context is the source value plus the system prompt. It doesn’t see surrounding keys or your other translations. If a key needs context — disambiguating “Order” the verb from “Order” the noun, for example — the system prompt is where to add it.
Plurals are not batched. Each plural variant is its own per-cell call, so review each one individually.
Always review before committing. The model is good but it’s not infallible; treat suggestions as a starting point, not the final answer.