Muyi Translate

Muyi Translate

When to use

• Translate articles, documents, blog posts, README files, URLs, or inline text.
• Localize Markdown content while preserving structure, links, and code blocks.
• Handle long documents where chunking and terminology consistency matter.
• Produce either a fast draft or a refined publication-quality translation.

Resource map

• references/config/extend-schema.md: EXTEND.md fields and glossary schema
• references/config/first-time-setup.md: first-run question set and EXTEND.md template
• references/workflow-mechanics.md: source materialization, output directory, conflict handling
• references/refined-workflow.md: analysis, critique, revision, and polish guidance
• references/subagent-prompt-template.md: shared-context template for chunked translation
• references/glossary-en-zh.md: built-in EN -> ZH glossary

Runtime

• Prefer the bundled CLI at scripts/main.bundle.js for chunking so runtime translation does not depend on installing node_modules.
• Resolve script paths relative to this skill directory, never relative to the task cwd.
• Prefer bun to run the bundled CLI.
• If bun is unavailable but npx exists, npx -y bun can run the bundled CLI as a fallback, but it may require network access on first use.
• If the bundle is missing and you are maintaining the skill, run bun install and bun run build inside scripts/, then use the bundled CLI.
• If neither is available, explain that automated chunking is unavailable and either install Bun or chunk manually.

Preference lookup

Check for EXTEND.md in this exact order and stop at the first match:

1. .muyi-skills/muyi-translate/EXTEND.md
2. ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/muyi-skills/muyi-translate/EXTEND.md
3. $HOME/.muyi-skills/muyi-translate/EXTEND.md

If a file is found, read it and apply it. On first use in a session, briefly tell the user which file is active.

If no file exists, do not silently assume a persistent profile. Before translating, ask once for target language, mode, audience, style, and save location, then create EXTEND.md. If the user explicitly says to skip setup, proceed with built-in defaults for this run only and state that no preferences were saved.

Defaults

• target_language: zh-CN
• default_mode: normal
• audience: general
• style: storytelling
• chunk_threshold: 4000
• chunk_max_words: 5000

Workflow

1. Load preferences and merge glossary sources.
   • Load the built-in language-pair glossary when available.
   • Merge EXTEND.md inline glossary.
   • Merge EXTEND.md glossary_files, resolved relative to the EXTEND.md file.
   • Merge any glossary override provided for the current run.
   • Read references/config/extend-schema.md only if field details are needed.
2. Materialize the source.
   • File path: use as-is.
   • URL or inline text: save it to translate/{slug}.md first.
   • Create the output directory as {source-dir}/{source-basename}-{target-lang}/.
   • Follow references/workflow-mechanics.md for naming and conflict handling.
3. Select the mode.
   • Quick: translate directly.
   • Normal: analyze, assemble context, then translate.
   • Refined: analyze, draft, critique, revise, then polish.
   • If the user says 快翻 or quick, use quick mode.
   • If the user says 精翻, refined, publication quality, or asks to continue polishing, use refined mode.
   • Otherwise use the configured default.
4. Assess content length.
   • Quick mode never chunks.
   • Normal and refined modes translate as a single unit below chunk_threshold.
   • At or above the threshold, extract terminology first, then chunk the Markdown.
5. Chunk long Markdown with the bundled CLI scripts/main.bundle.js.

Resolve the script path relative to the directory containing this SKILL.md, not relative to the current task directory.

SKILL_DIR="<absolute-path-to-muyi-translate>"
bun "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/main.bundle.js" <file> --max-words <n> --output-dir <output-dir>

If only npx is available:

SKILL_DIR="<absolute-path-to-muyi-translate>"
npx -y bun "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/main.bundle.js" <file> --max-words <n> --output-dir <output-dir>

This writes chunk files under <output-dir>/chunks/.

6. For chunked translation, create shared context in 02-prompt.md using references/subagent-prompt-template.md.
   • Translate chunks sequentially by default.
   • Only use worker agents in parallel if the user explicitly asked for delegation or sub-agents and the chunks are independent.
   • Merge translated chunks in order.
   • If chunks/frontmatter.md exists, prepend it before saving the merged result.
7. Apply these translation principles.
   • Preserve meaning, facts, Markdown structure, links, and code blocks.
   • Translate for natural target-language flow, not literal word order.
   • Keep terminology consistent and annotate first occurrences only when useful.
   • Preserve figurative meaning and emotional tone, even if wording must change.
   • Add concise translator's notes only when the target audience truly needs them.
   • If YAML frontmatter exists, rename source metadata fields with a source prefix and add translated top-level text fields where appropriate.
8. Save outputs with stable filenames.
   • Quick: translation.md
   • Normal: 01-analysis.md, 02-prompt.md, translation.md
   • Refined: 01-analysis.md, 02-prompt.md, 03-draft.md, 04-critique.md, 05-revision.md, translation.md
9. After the final translation, do a lightweight image-language check.
   • If a referenced image likely still contains source-language text, tell the user as a plain list.
   • Do not localize images unless the user asks.

Mode details

Quick

Translate directly to translation.md. Use this for short or disposable content.

Normal

Create 01-analysis.md and 02-prompt.md, then write translation.md.

If the user later asks to continue polishing, rename the current translation.md to 03-draft.md and continue with critique, revision, and polish using references/refined-workflow.md.

Refined

Follow the review loop in references/refined-workflow.md.

Use the main agent for critique, revision, and polish even if the initial draft was chunked.

Validation

• Ensure the final output preserves Markdown structure and stable file naming.
• Re-read the translation for terminology drift, broken links, code block corruption, and inconsistent annotation depth.
• If EXTEND.md creation or chunk automation was skipped because tooling was missing, state that explicitly.