[Discuss] Best practices for using i18n on the server.

[oatkiller]

Hi all. I want to discuss our expectations around using i18n on the server. Server code often defines messages for HTTP responses, logs, and perhaps to populate fields in SavedObjects or other documents. Some server code may even generate strings that are then shown on the UI.

What do users expect? Should log messages be translated and localized? Does SDH rely on English language log messages? Will we break things or annoy users if we change our current behavior?

Is Kibana generally consistent in this area? Should we use i18n for all messages on the server? This i18n guideline suggests using i18n when writing NodeJS code. I've included a table below that documents the behavior as its found in the Security Solution.

Security Solution

Types of messages found in server side code	Do you use i18n?
Human readable HTTP bodies (e.g. when a HTTP route returns a status code of 200 or 500 and includes a message in the response body)	No
Log messages	No
Messages that are stored in SavedObjects or in ES documents in data indices	?
Messages that are included in HTTP responses and then shown in the UI	?

Here is a template you can copy if you'd like to use it to document what your plugin is doing:

Template

Types of messages found in server side code	Do you use i18n?
Human readable HTTP bodies (e.g. when a HTTP route returns a status code of 200 or 500 and includes a message in the response body)
Log messages
Messages that are stored in SavedObjects or in ES documents in data indices
Messages that are included in HTTP responses and then shown in the UI
add other types as needed

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-core (Team:Core)

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-localization (Team:Localization)

[FrankHassanabad]

For lists plugin:

Template

Types of messages found in server side code	Do you use i18n?
Human readable HTTP bodies (e.g. when a HTTP route returns a status code of 200 or 500 and includes a message in the response body)	No
Log messages	No
Messages that are stored in SavedObjects or in ES documents in data indices	No
Messages that are included in HTTP responses and then shown in the UI	No

[stacey-gammon]

cc @Bamieh

I don't think it is possible to translate dynamic strings that are not hard coded.

[Bamieh]

I don't think it is possible to translate dynamic strings that are not hard coded.

correct this is not possible since our label extraction tool parses the ast tree statically to extract the ids and messages.