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name: i18n-readiness-review description: "Review a product/codebase for internationalization readiness before you localize. Use when asked if a product is ready to localize, to review i18n readiness, find hard-coded strings/locale bugs, or prep for going multilingual. Produces a readiness audit — externalized strings, locale-aware formatting, layout/expansion, encoding/RTL, and a prioritised list of i18n fixes to make before translation starts."

i18n Readiness Review Skill

Localizing a product that isn't internationalized fails expensively — translators hit hard-coded strings, layouts break on longer languages, dates show in the wrong format, and RTL shatters the UI. i18n is the engineering groundwork; localization is the content. This skill audits whether the product is ready, so you fix the foundations before paying to translate into the cracks.

Required Inputs

Ask for these only if they aren't already provided:

• The product — web/app/codebase, stack/framework (i18n tooling differs).
• Target languages — especially if any need RTL (Arabic/Hebrew), CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean), or are long (German/Finnish).
• What you can share — code snippets, UI screenshots, or a description of how strings/formatting are handled today.

Output Format

i18n Readiness: [product]

A readiness audit across the dimensions that break localization, each with status (🟢 ready / 🟡 partial / 🔴 blocker) and the fix:

Dimension	Check	Status	Fix
String externalization	no user-facing text hard-coded; all in resource files / i18n keys		move strings to a catalog; no concatenated sentences
Formatting	dates, numbers, currency, plurals via locale-aware libs (Intl/ICU)		use Intl/ICU; never string-format dates
Pluralization	plural rules handled (not count + " items")		ICU plural categories (some langs have 4–6)
Layout/expansion	UI tolerates ~+30–40% text length; no fixed-width truncation		flexible layouts, no text baked into images
Encoding	UTF-8 throughout; CJK renders		UTF-8 end to end
RTL	layout mirrors for right-to-left scripts		logical CSS properties, dir attribute
Locale plumbing	locale selection, fallback, and persistence exist		a locale resolver + fallback chain
Assets/content	images with text, examples, names are swappable		externalize locale-specific assets

Prioritised fixes — the blockers (🔴) first (hard-coded strings, no Intl formatting, broken RTL), then 🟡s. These must land before translation begins, or you translate into a broken foundation.

Verdict — ready to localize / fix-blockers-first / not yet, in one line.

Quality Checks

• Checks string externalization (the #1 blocker) — no hard-coded or concatenated UI text
• Verifies locale-aware formatting (Intl/ICU) for dates, numbers, currency, plurals
• Assesses layout expansion (+30–40%) and RTL if a target needs it
• Confirms UTF-8 / CJK encoding end to end
• Prioritises blockers to fix before translation starts
• Ends with a clear ready / not-ready verdict

Anti-Patterns

• Do not start translating before i18n is ready — you'll translate into hard-coded strings and broken layouts
• Do not concatenate sentence fragments — word order differs by language; translate whole strings with placeholders
• Do not string-format dates/numbers — use Intl/ICU, or every locale shows them wrong
• Do not assume text length — German/Finnish expand; fixed-width UI truncates and clips
• Do not ignore RTL until late — retrofitting right-to-left into a left-to-right layout is a rebuild, not a tweak

Based On

Internationalization engineering practice — string externalization, ICU/Intl formatting & plurals, text expansion, RTL, UTF-8.

Example Trigger Phrases

• "If a product is ready to localize."
• "Review i18n readiness."
• "Find hard-coded strings/locale bugs."
• "Prep for going multilingual."