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Guides

Each guide takes a single task (check content, translate it, review what a machine couldn't decide) and shows the same job through three doors, in order: Kapi Desktop, your AI agent, and the CLI. The interactive embeds run the real kapi binary in your browser: no install, no server, no API key.

For what kapi is and how the surfaces relate, see the Kapi overview. For every command and flag, see the command reference.

Get oriented​

kapi --help lists the writing commands in every project. It adds the language commands once the recipe declares a target language, and before that kapi help languages lists them. kapi help --all lists every command, including the engine's.

The writing commands lead with seven, in the order a person meets them:

  • kapi look: see the project, or one file with its rules and findings in place.
  • kapi rules: decide, list, narrow or drop the rules the project keeps.
  • kapi check: check content against its rules, and fail on a failing finding.
  • kapi fix: apply the fixes kapi can make on its own.
  • kapi connect: put an assistant on the project.
  • kapi share: share the rules with your team.
  • kapi open: open the folder in Kapi Desktop.

The tour below runs a copy of kapi in your browser, with no install and no server. That copy prints the full list from kapi --help. Then kapi formats and kapi tools, two engine commands, list the format readers and the processing tools you can run on a file's blocks. Step through the tour from the rail, or press Run all.

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The explorer below shows the format engine round-trip. Run a file through pseudo-translate and compare the source with the output. Only the text changes; the tags, keys and attributes around it come back byte for byte. The guides use the same reader and writer.

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Ad-hoc or project?​

Use a kapi project for any repository or content set you work on more than once. Its committed recipe holds the content patterns, the voice, terms and coordinates that govern them, your flows and, if you translate, your languages. Every command finds the project from any subdirectory, as git does, and the project's store keeps content memory, terminology and approvals across runs. Create your first project covers the setup, and Projects explains the concept.

kapi also runs ad-hoc: a command on the files you name, with nothing saved. Use it for one-offs and scripts. The guides note the project form where it differs.

Your writing​

The gate in a project with one language: check content, keep terms and voice, and edit or create content with an agent.

Check content like tests

Structured findings, a pass/fail gate, an exit code CI understands, and check --ship as the release bar.

Keep terms consistent

Fail a source file that uses a forbidden term; with target languages, flag terminology drift in each translation.

Keep source on brand

Flag forbidden, competitor, and off-voice terms in your source and rewrite the ones that fail.

Set up your brand guide in 10 minutes

From starter pack to a bound, enforced voice profile.

Content governance for AI

Voice profile, terms and checks as guardrails, so agent output passes your rules when it arrives.

Edit content

Edit the text inside any file: you supply the edits, and kapi writes them back with the file's structure kept.

Create content

Author from scratch with kapi as the checker: parse it back, gate on voice and terms, revise.

Bulk rewrite with an agent

Make one editorial change across a whole content set, with the structure kept and every file checked.

Feed content to your AI

Parse any format into anchored content blocks an assistant or RAG pipeline can read.

Languages​

What a target language adds: translation, review, and the gates per language.

What gets translated

Protect sensitive content, reuse past translations, and keep terms consistent, in one pass before anything ships.

Translate with your AI

kapi up catches a project up to its ship gates; kapi translate does one file. Formats round-trip intact.

Preview before you ship

Pseudo-translate your strings to surface clipping and missing-string bugs before real text arrives.

Review & approve

The human half of the loop: work the review queue, approve or reject, raise the coverage a gate measures.

Ship gates & CI

Enforce the project's release bar on every PR with kapi check --ship.

Tier gates per market

Contractual locales human-reviewed, the long tail machine-shipped; one recipe encodes the review budget.

Choose a model

Select an AI provider, wire its credentials safely, and make it the default, including on-device Ollama.

Estimate a run's cost

Count blocks and source words in any format to size a job before you commission it.

Reuse what you've translated

Reuse your content memory, fill the gaps, and flag terminology before translation, with no API key.

Where translations & terms live

The three storage models (loose file, named store, or project store) and the flags that select each.

Translate audio & video

Pull text out of audio, video, and images, translate it, and write subtitles or captions back.

Pause & resume a big run

A single-file .kpz workspace: extract in, transform in place, merge out. Config travels with the file.

Hand off to translators

Extract to XLIFF or PO, hand it to a translator, merge the targets back, with full memory provenance.

The engine​

Formats, tools, flows and plugins underneath, for developers. Every command is in the command reference.

Try it in your browser

Pseudo-translate a file, count its words, and list the formats, tools and flows, with the real binary in your browser.

Understanding the CLI layers

The plumbing under the everyday verbs: exec runs one tool, run runs a named flow, extract and merge carry a hand-off.

The project store

Where kapi keeps what it reads from your files and the context the project works under, and how to back up or rebuild each.

Build a flow visually

Compose a flow in Kapi Desktop's Toolbox, run it against your content, and save it in the recipe.

Manage plugins

Install format and engine plugins from the registry in Kapi Desktop, and keep them up to date.

Next steps​