Herber Colop
EN
All the decisions of myself-app

ADR 0005

English and Spanish, with localized content fields

Status
Accepted
Decided
Area
i18n

Read whenadding copy or content, or when a translation is missing

The records are written in English.

  • Revised: 2026-09-18 by #23 — the locale list lives in @myself-app/domain, and site-locales.ts re-exports it
  • Revised: 2026-09-28 by ADR 0019 — the default locale is routing, declared in @myself-app/implementation-ui/routing; the list stays in the domain

Context

The site is read in English and Spanish. Two kinds of text need translating: UI copy (headings, buttons, navigation — the same for every visitor) and content (a bio, a job's responsibilities, a technology's description). entifix translates UI copy through i18next catalogs. It has no member type for content in several languages: MetaAccessorTypes is a closed list in core (entifix#36).

entifix also fixes r10c's locale list and default in core — LOCALES = ['es', 'en'], DEFAULT_LOCALE = 'es' — used as i18next's fallback language and as the controls' starting locale (entifix#35).

Decision

  • en and es, en by default. The site declares its own SITE_LOCALES = ['en', 'es'], en by default, typed as a subset of entifix's Locale. That one list drives the routes, the catalogs and content validation. It is declared in @myself-app/domain, because content validation needs it; the UI's routing/site-locales.ts re-exports it beside SITE_DEFAULT_LOCALE, which is routing, and the adapter is handed it.
  • Routes carry the locale: /[locale]/… with generateStaticParams. / sends the visitor to /en/ without a server.
  • UI copy lives in catalogs, and a key present in one locale only fails the build (#17).
  • Content uses localized fields — one record per fact, with only the text varying: "role": { "en": "Tech Lead", "es": "Líder técnico" }. Built here as { en, es } on a member declared type: 'string'; the mapping passes the object through untouched. The metadata is knowingly inexact until entifix has a real type.
  • The page picks the language with localize(value, locale). Entities hold both, the adapter is locale-agnostic, and the JSON the browser reads carries both.
  • A missing translation fails the build. Nothing falls back at render time, so entifix's es fallback is unreachable.
  • Localized querying is deferred. The radar searches English text first.

Alternatives

  • English only — fastest, but adding Spanish later moves every route under a new segment.
  • Per-locale content files — needs nothing from entifix, but every non-text member is written twice and the two versions drift unnoticed.