Translation Pipeline

# 🌐 Translation Pipeline

Automated translation of LibreFolio MkDocs documentation into multiple languages using Aphra — an LLM-based agentic translation workflow. Supports both cloud (OpenRouter) and local (Ollama) LLM backends.

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Overview

The pipeline translates *.en.md source files into it, fr, es. The translated files (*.it.md, *.fr.md, *.es.md) are picked up by mkdocs-static-i18n (suffix strategy) to build a multilingual documentation site.

Scope	Files	Translated?
User Manual	17 files	✅
Admin Manual	6 files	✅
Financial Theory	7 files (LaTeX)	✅
Gallery	3 files	✅
Root (Home, FAQ, Credits)	3 files	✅
Developer Manual	~45 files	❌ EN-only
POC UX	1 file	❌ EN-only

Total: ~36 source files → ~108 translated files (3 languages)

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Architecture

mkdocs_src/aphra-pipeline/
├── .env                    # API key + model config (gitignored)
├── .env.example            # Template for contributors
├── .gitignore              # Ignores .env, config.toml, cache
├── README.md               # Quick-start guide
└── translate_docs.py       # Orchestration script (integrated with dev.py)

The script integrates with dev.py via register_subparser(), adding:

• ./dev.py mkdocs translate — run translations
• ./dev.py mkdocs translate-check — verify setup

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Workflow: Shared Analysis

The key optimization over vanilla Aphra: Step 1 (Analyze) runs once per source file and its result is shared across all target languages. This saves ~25% of LLM calls when translating to 3 languages.

flowchart TB
    subgraph per_file["📄 Per Source File"]
        source["source.en.md"]
        analyze["🧠 Step 1: Analyze<br/><i>Analyzer model (27B)</i><br/>Identify key terms, structure"]
        source --> analyze
    end

    subgraph per_lang["🌐 Per Target Language"]
        direction TB
        translate["✍️ Step 3: Translate<br/><i>Writer model (9B)</i><br/>Initial full translation"]
        critique["🔎 Step 4: Critique<br/><i>Analyzer model (27B)</i><br/>Compare original vs translation"]
        refine["✨ Step 5: Refine<br/><i>Writer model (9B)</i><br/>Final translation with fixes"]
        translate --> critique --> refine
    end

    analyze -->|"shared analysis"| per_lang

    refine --> clean["🧹 Post-process<br/>Strip [N] glossary, tags"]
    clean --> output["source.it.md"]

    style per_file fill:#e8f4fd,stroke:#2196f3
    style per_lang fill:#fff3e0,stroke:#ff9800
    style analyze fill:#e3f2fd,stroke:#1565c0
    style critique fill:#e3f2fd,stroke:#1565c0
    style translate fill:#fff8e1,stroke:#f57f17
    style refine fill:#fff8e1,stroke:#f57f17

Step 2 (Search) skipped by default

Aphra's optional web search step adds cost ($4/1000 queries via OpenRouter :online plugin) and latency. It's disabled by default for technical documentation where terms are well-known.

Multi-language flow

When translating to 3 languages, the full flow for one file is:

sequenceDiagram
    participant S as Source File
    participant A as 🧠 Analyzer (27B)
    participant W as ✍️ Writer (9B)

    S->>A: Analyze (ONCE)
    Note over A: Key terms, structure

    rect rgb(255, 243, 224)
        Note over W: → Italian
        A->>W: Translate (it)
        W->>A: Critique (it)
        A->>W: Refine (it)
        W-->>S: ✅ source.it.md
    end

    rect rgb(232, 245, 233)
        Note over W: → French
        A->>W: Translate (fr)
        W->>A: Critique (fr)
        A->>W: Refine (fr)
        W-->>S: ✅ source.fr.md
    end

    rect rgb(243, 229, 245)
        Note over W: → Spanish
        A->>W: Translate (es)
        W->>A: Critique (es)
        A->>W: Refine (es)
        W-->>S: ✅ source.es.md
    end

Savings: 1 Analyze call instead of 3 = −67% analyze calls across 3 languages.

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Model Roles

The pipeline splits LLM work into two categories, allowing different models for different tasks:

Category	Steps	Env Variable	Recommended
Reasoning	Analyze + Critique	APHRA_ANALYZER	Larger model (27B)
Generation	Translate + Refine	APHRA_MODEL / APHRA_WRITER	Faster model (9B)

graph LR
    subgraph reasoning["🧠 Reasoning (27B)"]
        A["Step 1: Analyze"]
        C["Step 4: Critique"]
    end
    subgraph generation["✍️ Generation (9B)"]
        T["Step 3: Translate"]
        R["Step 5: Refine"]
    end

    A -->|"key terms"| T
    T -->|"draft"| C
    C -->|"feedback"| R

    style reasoning fill:#e3f2fd,stroke:#1565c0
    style generation fill:#fff8e1,stroke:#f57f17

Priority hierarchy

APHRA_ANALYZER  → defaults to APHRA_WRITER → APHRA_MODEL → hardcoded default
APHRA_WRITER    → defaults to APHRA_MODEL → hardcoded default
APHRA_CRITIQUER → defaults to APHRA_ANALYZER (reasoning task)
APHRA_SEARCHER  → defaults to APHRA_MODEL → hardcoded default

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How We Customized Aphra

Aphra is used as a library, not via its CLI. We bypass aphra.translate() to gain control over several aspects:

1. Config path injection

Aphra's translate() passes config.toml to LLMModelClient (API key) but not to workflow.load_config(). Without our fix, the workflow loads its internal default.toml with expensive defaults (Claude Sonnet 4 + Perplexity Sonar).

Fix: Call workflow.load_config(global_config_path=config_path) directly.

2. Base URL override (Ollama support)

LLMModelClient.__init__ hardcodes base_url="https://openrouter.ai/api/v1". We patch model_client.client.base_url after construction to point to Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

3. Shared analysis across languages

Vanilla Aphra analyzes the source text once per translation call. We extract the Analyze step and reuse its result across all target languages for the same file.

4. Per-step model swapping

We modify workflow_config['writer'] at runtime between steps:

• Before Analyze: set to models['analyzer'] (27B reasoning)
• Before Translate/Refine: set to models['writer'] (9B generation)
• Critique uses models['critiquer'] (defaults to analyzer)

5. Web search bypass

Step 2 (Search) uses OpenRouter's :online plugin which costs $4/1000 results. We skip it entirely for technical docs via APHRA_WEB_SEARCH=false.

6. Post-processing cleanup

Aphra's output contains artifacts we strip automatically:

• <translation> / </translation> wrapper tags
• Inline glossary markers [N] (preserving markdown links)
• Glossary definition blocks at the end of the file

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Configuration

Local mode (Ollama)

APHRA_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1
APHRA_ANALYZER=kwangsuklee/Qwen3.5-27B-Claude-4.6-Opus-Reasoning-Distilled-GGUF
APHRA_MODEL=kwangsuklee/Qwen3.5-9B-Claude-4.6-Opus-Reasoning-Distilled-GGUF
APHRA_WEB_SEARCH=false

Install Ollama and pull models:

brew install ollama   # macOS
ollama pull kwangsuklee/Qwen3.5-27B-Claude-4.6-Opus-Reasoning-Distilled-GGUF
ollama pull kwangsuklee/Qwen3.5-9B-Claude-4.6-Opus-Reasoning-Distilled-GGUF

Cloud mode (OpenRouter)

# APHRA_BASE_URL=        ← commented out = cloud mode
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-your-key-here
APHRA_MODEL=google/gemini-2.5-flash

Usage

# Check setup
./dev.py mkdocs translate-check

# Dry run (shows plan + estimated tokens)
./dev.py mkdocs translate --dry-run

# Translate specific files
./dev.py mkdocs translate --file faq.en.md --lang it

# Translate entire folder (glob)
./dev.py mkdocs translate --file 'user/**/*.en.md' --lang it fr es

# Translate all (skips cached)
./dev.py mkdocs translate

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Caching

The pipeline caches source file MD5 hashes in .translate-hashes.json to skip unchanged files between runs. If a source .en.md hasn't changed, all its translations are skipped.

Use --force to ignore the cache and re-translate everything.

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Prettier Compatibility

The Problem

Prettier uses the remark parser (CommonMark). In CommonMark, !!! info "title" is an unknown construct — admonitions don't exist. Prettier treats the 4-space indented body as "continuation text" and strips the indentation, breaking the admonition box:

<!-- BEFORE Prettier -->
!!! note "Title"
    Content inside the box.     ← 4 spaces (INSIDE the box)

<!-- AFTER Prettier — BROKEN -->
!!! note "Title"
Content inside the box.         ← 0 spaces (OUTSIDE the box)

tabWidth: 4 does NOT fix this — it only controls tab→space conversion, not paragraph indentation preservation.

The Solution

Add an empty line between the directive and the indented body. With the empty line, Prettier leaves the block completely untouched, and MkDocs renders identically:

<!-- ✅ CORRECT — survives Prettier unchanged -->
!!! note "Title"

    Content inside the box.
    Second line.

<!-- ❌ WRONG — Prettier will strip indentation -->
!!! note "Title"
    Content inside the box.
    Second line.

This applies to both !!! (admonitions) and ??? (collapsible details).

Automated Checks

The empty-line rule is enforced at three levels:

Check	Where	Severity	Description
Pre-build warning	dev.py → _check_admonition_empty_lines()	⚠️ Warning	Runs before every ./dev.py mkdocs build. Scans all .md files and warns if any admonition is missing the empty line.
Translation validation	validate_translations.py → admonition-empty-line	⚠️ WARN	Checks translated files during ./dev.py mkdocs translate-validate.
Structural diff (critic)	translate_docs.py → _structural_diff() → ADMONITION_EMPTY_LINE	Info to LLM	Injected into the Step 4 (Critique) context so the critic LLM can flag and fix the issue during refinement.