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[i18n] A string that never enters the String Catalog is invisible to the audit #844
Description
Rescoped after #850 landed. The original report bundled three blind spots; the biggest is fixed, one is a genuine limitation rather than a to-do, and this is what is left.
The gap
The Apple pass checks that each entry already in Localizable.xcstrings has every language. A LocalizedStringKey or String(localized:) literal that was never extracted into the catalog is simply not seen — English ships to every locale, and the audit reports green.
It measures coverage within the catalog, never completeness of it.
Live example
#826 adds two strings via the correct mechanism:
case .connectedNoData: return "No live heart rate or synced history yet this session."
String(localized: "Connected. No live heart rate or synced history yet this session.")Neither is in Strand/Resources/Localizable.xcstrings. Both sibling chip strings ("Strap not connected. Tap to connect.", "History sync is experimental on 5.0.") are. CI is green on that PR.
What a fix looks like
Scan app-target Swift for String(localized: "…") and LocalizedStringKey literals, and fail when one has no catalog entry.
The hard part is false positives, and this gates every PR — so it needs care:
- interpolated literals (
"\(n) pages behind") key differently in the catalog String(localized:)withtable:/bundle:/comment:arguments- literals in test files, previews, and
#if DEBUG - the existing
i18n_audit_baseline.jsonmechanism should absorb any pre-existing set so it starts green, as ci: gate on doc comments that bind to nothing #849 and ci(i18n): cover every shipped locale, not the four in a constant #850 both did
Not tracked here
Text(variable) invisibility (original item 3) — a static scan cannot resolve Text(someVar) without type inference, and the tool already documents this class of blind spot in its own comments. Recording it as a permanent limitation rather than an open task.
The locale-list gap (original item 1) — fixed in #850: both language lists are now discovered from what ships, with a ratcheting allowance over the 1019 pre-existing gaps.
Whether it/ru/zh-* should ship at all in their current state — that is a product decision, not a tooling one, and it now has its own issue.
Activity
ryanbr commentedon Jul 27, 2026
Scoping this properly — it is substantially worse than I filed. The Android
values-zhgap is one symptom of a general one.Tools/i18n_audit.py:34isLANGS = ["de", "es", "fr", "pt-PT"]. The Apple catalogs actually ship eight non-English localizations. So the gate covers four of eight, and the four it does not cover have drifted exactly as you would expect:Strand(3255 keys)StrandDesign(95)NOOPWatch(52)NOOPWatchComplications(30)The four gated languages are at 100 % in every catalog. The four ungated ones are missing up to 85 % of their strings —
StrandDesignships 14 of 95 Italian, and the watch complications 5 of 30. That is the gate doing its job where it is pointed, and nothing happening where it is not.Android is the same shape:
ANDROID_LOCALE_DIRShardcodes the same four,values-zhexists on disk and is never compared, and it sits 43 keys behind.So the one-line framing from the original report holds, but the fix is not "add zh": it is derive the language list from what is actually shipped — the union of
localizationsacross the catalogs, andls values-*/on Android — so a locale is covered the day it appears rather than the day someone remembers to add it to a constant.That cannot be switched on as-is: hundreds of keys are missing, so the gate would go red for everyone immediately. Same answer as #849 — a per-(catalog, language) ratcheting baseline so it starts green, blocks NEW omissions, and reports IMPROVED when a count drops. PR coming.
Worth being explicit about what this does not do: it does not translate anything. It stops the hole growing and makes the existing debt countable. Whether
it/ru/zh-*should be shipped at 14/95 or removed until they are filled is a separate call, and one I would rather you make than have implied by a linter.ci(i18n): cover every shipped locale, not the four in a constant (#850)
ryanbr commentedon Jul 27, 2026
Item 1 is fixed and merged as
0dffd7bb(#850). Leaving this open for items 2 and 3.What landed. Both language lists are now discovered rather than declared — Apple from each catalog's own
localizations, Android fromvalues-*on disk.LANGSkeeps zero tolerance (those four are perfect because they are hard-gated); the 1019 gaps in the newly covered locales sit behind a ratcheting allowance so the gate starts green and blocks only growth.catalog_summary()turned out to have the same blind spot and is fixed too — it reported four of eight languages, so the coverage view readmissing=0across the board. That is very likely why this survived: anyone who ran the audit to check coverage was shown a clean sheet. It now doubles as the burn-down view.Still open here:
LocalizedStringKey/String(localized:)literal that never reached the catalog is invisible. Distinguish "connected, no data" from "not connected" (#612) #826 is the live example. This is the harder one: it needs a source scan that distinguishes real literals from interpolations and variables, so it has genuine false-positive risk against a gate that blocks every PR.Text(variable)invisibility, already understood.And a product question this surfaced, which is yours rather than the linter's:
it,ru,zh-Hansandzh-Hantcurrently ship at up to 85 % untranslated —StrandDesignis 14 of 95 Italian, the watch complications 5 of 30. The options are to fill them, or to stop shipping them until they are filled. Right now a user with an Italian device gets a mostly-English app that looks half-broken rather than honestly English.[-][i18n] The audit validates what's already tracked, not whether tracking is complete — values-zh is 42 keys behind and unchecked[/-][+][i18n] A string that never enters the String Catalog is invisible to the audit[/+]Escalate strap battery alerts: a critical 12% crossing + a bedtime ni…
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