Translation status

FastAPI-fastkit ships docs in several languages, but those translations are not at parity. This page is the single source of truth for what is actually translated where, what gets shown when a page hasn't been translated, and how to help.

Source of truth

English (en) is the source of truth. All product, CLI, and API behaviour described in the docs is authored against the English files first. Other locales are translations of those English sources and may lag behind a release.

If a translated page disagrees with the English page, trust the English page until the translation is updated.

The English files live under docs/en/. Every other locale (docs/ko/, docs/ja/, ...) is a translation target.

The repository-root CHANGELOG.md is part of that English source of truth. Locale-specific changelog.md pages may exist as wrappers or entry points, but they intentionally reuse the canonical English release history instead of maintaining translated copies.

Per-locale completeness

The numbers below count Markdown pages in each locale's directory tree relative to the English source. They reflect what's actually present in the repository — not what shows up in the language switcher (which the next section explains).

Locale	Status	Markdown pages	Notes
🇬🇧 English (`en`)	✅ Source of truth	26 / 26	Authoritative.
🇰🇷 Korean (`ko`)	✅ Complete	26 / 26	All locale pages are present. Phase 1: top-level + core user-guide; Phase 2: remaining user-guide + all tutorials; Phase 3: contributing + reference. `docs/ko/changelog.md` intentionally reuses the canonical English `CHANGELOG.md`.
🇯🇵 Japanese (`ja`)	✅ Complete	26 / 26	All locale pages are present. Phase 1: top-level + core user-guide; Phase 2: remaining user-guide + all tutorials; Phase 3: contributing + reference. `docs/ja/changelog.md` intentionally reuses the canonical English `CHANGELOG.md`.
🇨🇳 Chinese (`zh`)	✅ Complete	26 / 26	All locale pages are present. Phase 1: top-level + core user-guide; Phase 2: remaining user-guide + all tutorials; Phase 3: contributing + reference. `docs/zh/changelog.md` intentionally reuses the canonical English `CHANGELOG.md`.
🇪🇸 Spanish (`es`)	✅ Complete	26 / 26	All locale pages are present. Phase 1: top-level + core user-guide; Phase 2: remaining user-guide + all tutorials; Phase 3: contributing + reference. `docs/es/changelog.md` intentionally reuses the canonical English `CHANGELOG.md`.
🇫🇷 French (`fr`)	✅ Complete	26 / 26	All locale pages are present. Phase 1: top-level + core user-guide; Phase 2: remaining user-guide + all tutorials; Phase 3: contributing + reference. `docs/fr/changelog.md` intentionally reuses the canonical English `CHANGELOG.md`.
🇩🇪 German (`de`)	✅ Complete	26 / 26	All locale pages are present. Phase 1: top-level + core user-guide; Phase 2: remaining user-guide + all tutorials; Phase 3: contributing + reference. `docs/de/changelog.md` intentionally reuses the canonical English `CHANGELOG.md`.

Snapshot verified 2026-06-18; zh row recounted for the current branch after Phase 3 (contributing + reference) landed. Chinese now has all 26 locale pages present and is tracked at ✅ Complete. These counts are maintained by hand; to recount the current state from the repo root, run:

$ for loc in en ko ja zh es fr de; do
    echo "$loc: $(find docs/$loc -name '*.md' 2>/dev/null | wc -l | tr -d ' ')"
  done

If the recount disagrees with the table, the table is stale — please update it (or open a PR / issue noting the drift).

Legend:

✅ Source of truth — the locale we author against.
🟡 Partial — some pages translated; missing pages fall back.
🔴 Skeleton — language switcher entry exists, but no translated pages are checked in yet. The site renders English content under the translated nav labels.

How fallback works

The docs site uses mkdocs-static-i18n with fallback_to_default: true. This means:

For each translated locale, MkDocs only writes pages that exist in that locale's directory.
For every page not present in a locale, the build falls back to the English version of that page.
The site-wide language switcher always lists every configured locale regardless of how many pages each one has, because the build emits a reachable URL for each (page → fallback to English if needed).

So a 🔴 Skeleton entry in the language switcher is not a promise that the docs are translated — only that the locale build target is configured. The behaviour is intentional (out-of-tree contributors can incrementally translate a page at a time without breaking the link graph), but it makes the language switcher look more complete than the underlying content actually is.

How to read the docs site

Always default to English if you want the most accurate, current information.
Use a translated locale only after checking this page for the locale's status. If it's 🟡 or 🔴 and you hit a topic that hasn't been translated, you're reading an English fallback under a translated nav label.

How to help

The current rollout is one tracking issue per locale, with the work broken into phases — for example ko is being landed across Phase 1 (top-level + core user-guide), Phase 2 (remaining user-guide + all tutorials), Phase 3 (contributing + reference). Each phase ships as its own PR so reviewers can sign off on a coherent slice without waiting for the entire locale to be finished.

If you'd like to contribute:

Read the Translation Guide for the workflow, tooling, and style conventions.
Check or open the locale tracking issue first. If a locale already has an open tracking issue, claim a phase (or a specific page within a phase) there so the work doesn't double up. If no tracking issue exists for the locale you want to work on, open one that lists which pages belong to which phase, then start with Phase 1.
One PR per phase is the preferred shape. Smaller "fix this single page" PRs are still welcome — especially for correcting an out-of-sync translation — but for net-new locale work, batching by phase keeps glossary decisions and cross-link wording consistent across the slice.
Open the PR adding files under docs/<locale>/<same path>. Keep filenames identical to the English source so MkDocs picks them up automatically.
Treat localized changelog pages as wrappers around the canonical English CHANGELOG.md unless project policy explicitly changes.
Update this page's table to reflect the new completeness count (use the recount snippet at the top of this page) and bump the "Snapshot verified" date so reviewers can see when it was last reconciled. Note in the "Notes" column which phase has landed if the locale is still partial.

Bug reports about translated pages going out of sync with the English source are welcome — please link the English page and the translated page so we can triage.

Why we ship 🔴 Skeleton locales at all

Two reasons:

Predictable URL space. Each locale already has its /<locale>/ subtree reachable, so when a translated page lands the link is stable from day one — including links published in this guide.
Lower contributor friction. Contributors translating a single page don't have to also wire a new locale build into MkDocs config — they just drop the file in.

If a locale stays at 🔴 Skeleton with no contribution activity for an extended period, we may revisit whether to keep its build target enabled. That decision is tracked separately and is not something this status page silently changes.