How does globalize.now fits into your stack

Two questions in one: what's the difference between globalize.now and Claude Code, and do you need both globalize.now and an i18n library?

globalize.now vs Claude Code

They work together. Claude Code does the coding work. globalize.now gives it the instructions and handles the infrastructure. This works the same whether you're using Claude Code, Cursor, or VS Code Copilot/Codex.

Claude Code is your AI coding agent. It reads your files, rewrites your components, generates locale files, and makes changes to your repo. Without globalize.now's skills, it improvises — and produces inconsistent key names, misses strings, or builds an architecture that breaks when you add new features.

globalize.now does two things:

1. Installs skill files into Claude Code — the playbook the agent follows (which i18n library, how to name keys, how to handle RTL/plurals/dynamic strings, how to structure locale files)

2. Runs translation infrastructure — the server-side jobs that translate your strings on every push and open PRs with updated locale files

Do you need both globalize.now and an i18n library?

Yes. They do different jobs.

globalize.now handles infrastructure: scans your repo, generates translation keys and locale files, syncs on every Git push, keeps your locale files current.

An i18n runtime library (i18next, next-intl, react-intl, lingui) handles the runtime: loads the right locale file for the current user, renders translated strings in the browser or server, handles pluralization and ICU message formatting, manages locale switching.

globalize.now produces the locale files. The i18n library consumes them. Neither replaces the other.

The setup step auto-detects your framework and installs the right library — you don't need to choose or configure it manually.