If your agent is going off-script — writing long explanations instead of making changes, proposing the wrong i18n library, asking questions the skills should already know — it's likely lost the skills context. This is recoverable.
How to recognize it
- The agent writes long explanations instead of making code changes
- It proposes a different i18n library than the one selected
- It starts asking questions the skills should already know how to answer
- Output looks inconsistent with earlier steps in the same session
Recovery steps
Step 1 — Refresh the skills
npx skills add --all globalize-now/globalize-skills
This re-installs the skill files and resets the agent's localization context.
Step 2 — Re-ask for setup
Set up i18n for my project
The globalize-guide skill rescans from the current state of the repo and resumes the journey. It won't duplicate work already completed, it picks up where the code is. New translation keys merge back into your locale files, and keys from the previous partial run are preserved.
Step 3 — Verify
Use the verification steps to confirm the output looks right before calling it done.
The conversion step is just taking a long time
If the conversion step seems to be running for 30–45 minutes without obvious activity, that's normal on a large codebase. Don't cancel the session. Check your editor's source control panel — if files are still being modified, it's working. Interrupting mid-conversion leaves your codebase in a partial state.
Prevention
- Run setup steps in order, don't skip ahead
- Keep your session focused — avoid mixing i18n work with other code changes in the same agent context
- On very large repos (100+ components), break conversion into batches: "Convert only the
/src/componentsdirectory first"