Android strings.xml localization with AI

What it is

Android resources live in res/values/strings.xml for the default language and res/values-es/strings.xml, res/values-pt-rBR/strings.xml for others.

Example

<resources>    <!-- Toolbar title -->    <string name="inbox_title">Inbox</string>    <string name="greeting">Hello, %1$s!</string>    <plurals name="unread">        <item quantity="one">%d unread message</item>        <item quantity="other">%d unread messages</item>    </plurals>    <string name="app_name" translatable="false">Glossa</string></resources>

How Glossa handles it

Plurals

<plurals> elements become plural entries and are written with the quantity items each locale needs.

Comments and context

XML comments directly above an element are kept as context.

Placeholders

%1$s, %d and other printf specifiers are protected, along with inline HTML tags such as <b>.

Round trip

Attributes such as translatable="false" and formatted are kept with the key and written back. Escaping follows aapt rules (\', \", \n, quoted sections) in both directions.

Translate it from the command line

Push the source-language file; strings are deduplicated against the rest of your workspace and queued for translation. Pull writes app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml back in the same format.

npx @meterapp/glossa loginnpx @meterapp/glossa push app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml --project appnpx @meterapp/glossa pull --project app --locale es,de,ja

Or ask an agent over MCP: “Push app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml to Glossa and pull Spanish.” It calls push_file and pull_file. See the CLI and MCP guides.

Other formats

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