Supported File Formats

i18n-sharpen supports reading and writing localization files in multiple formats to fit any JavaScript/TypeScript codebase.

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File Formats Matrix

Extension	Format	Read	Write (extract/prune)	Extra Dependency
.json	JSON	✅	✅	None
.yaml / .yml	YAML	✅	✅	None
.js / .cjs	CommonJS	✅	❌ Read-Only	None
.mjs	ES Module	✅	❌ Read-Only	jiti
.ts / .tsx	TypeScript	✅	❌ Read-Only	jiti

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Why JS/TS files are Read-Only

If you use .js, .ts, or .tsx files to store your translations (e.g. exporting an object with types or custom helpers), i18n-sharpen refuses to write to these files during extract or prune.

Overwriting JS/TS files using automated serialization would destroy:

• Custom imports or helpers.
• Type annotations (e.g. satisfies Record<string, string>).
• Code comments and JSDoc blocks.

Recommendation: For full automation (extract and prune), store your translations in .json or .yaml files. Modern bundlers (like Vite, Webpack) and TypeScript support direct JSON imports natively with compile-time type-safety:

import en from './locales/en.json'

(Make sure to enable "resolveJsonModule": true in your tsconfig.json)

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TS/ESM Loader (jiti)

Reading .ts, .tsx, and .mjs files requires the jiti package. Install it in your workspace devDependencies:

pnpm add -D jiti
# or
npm install -D jiti

i18n-sharpen will detect and use jiti to resolve and parse the module exports at run-time.