Usage Report & Key Management

i18n Ally Next analyzes how translation keys are used across your codebase, helping you identify unused keys, missing translations, and maintain a clean locale file structure.

Usage Report

The extension scans your source code to classify all translation keys into three categories:

Active Keys

Keys that are both defined in locale files and referenced in code. These are your healthy, in-use translations.

Idle Keys

Keys that are defined in locale files but not referenced anywhere in code. These may be:

• Deprecated translations that should be removed
• Keys used in dynamic patterns not detected by static analysis
• Keys referenced through derived key rules (e.g., pluralization suffixes)

Missing Keys

Keys that are referenced in code but not defined in locale files. These need to be added to your translations.

Viewing the Report

The usage report is displayed in the i18n Ally sidebar under the tree view. Each category shows the count and allows you to browse individual keys.

To refresh the report manually:

• Command Palette — Run i18n Ally Next: Refresh Usage Report
• Sidebar — Click the refresh icon in the tree view header

Key Management Operations

Duplicate Key

Copy a translation key and all its language values to a new key path:

1. Right-click a key in the sidebar tree view
2. Select Duplicate Key
3. Enter the new key path
4. All locale values are copied to the new path

Fulfill Missing Keys

Create empty entries for all missing keys across all languages, making it easy to fill in translations later:

1. Run from the sidebar progress view — click Fulfill on a specific locale
2. Or run from the command palette to fulfill all missing keys for all locales

{
  // Keep fulfilled (empty) keys in locale files
  "i18n-ally-next.keepFulfilled": true
}

Mark Key as In Use

Prevent a key from being reported as idle by manually marking it as "in use":

1. Right-click a key in the sidebar
2. Select Mark as In Use

The key is added to the keysInUse configuration. This setting also supports glob patterns for matching multiple keys:

{
  "i18n-ally-next.keysInUse": [
    "common.ok",
    "errors.*",
    "validation.**"
  ]
}

Derived Key Rules

Some frameworks generate keys dynamically (e.g., pluralization: item, item_one, item_other). Configure derived key rules so the extension understands these relationships:

{
  "i18n-ally-next.usage.derivedKeyRules": [
    "{key}_one",
    "{key}_other",
    "{key}_zero",
    "{key}_two",
    "{key}_few",
    "{key}_many"
  ]
}

When a source key is active, its derived keys won't be reported as idle.

Scanning Configuration

Control which files are scanned for usage analysis:

{
  // Glob patterns to ignore during usage scanning
  "i18n-ally-next.usage.scanningIgnore": [
    "dist/**",
    "node_modules/**",
    "*.test.ts"
  ]
}