An app is any piece of code that expands Lokalise's functionality. As a Lokalise customer or partner, you might need to use an app when you want to automate your localization project setup and workflows, customize and extend Lokalise core capabilities, or connect Lokalise with other systems.

We can classify apps according to their purpose, the type of third party system they integrate with, and their architecture.

App purpose

There are different ways that apps can interact with Lokalise in order to improve certain workflows and actions. The main use cases that we see today are the following:

• Data pipes: The app adjusts the data that is processed within Lokalise. For instance, custom placeholders can be applied when the content gets into Lokalise, and also before the content is exported to the third party.
• Content (or data) exchange: The app connects Lokalise to a third party to get data in and out (e.g, integrations with CMS)
• Editor extensions: The app enhances the experience within the Lokalise editor. For example, supporting more MT engines, adding spell checks, etc.
• Tasks exchange: The app creates and synchronizes tasks with other management tools, such as LSP.
• Reports and analytics: The app provides more ways to look at the data that Lokalise holds.

Integrated third party

These are the most common types of third party tools that Lokalise integrates with:

• Notifications and events
• Content management
• Design tools
• Cloud file storage
• Project management
• Code repositories
• Customer service
• Quality assurance

Are we missing an interesting one? We’d love to learn more about it, please don’t hesitate to tell us.

App architecture

Lokalise supports three types of app architectures.

Native apps

Native apps are built on the third party, and provide users with a native experience within that system. In general, native apps provide a better experience to end users because they don’t need to visit the Lokalise interface for managing the translation workflow. For example, when they are translating a WordPress website, Lokalise provides an interface in WordPress; and when they are translating their website designs, Lokalise provides an interface within Figma and Sketch.

The logic and UI to connect with Lokalise runs on the third party side. Therefore, in order to build a native app, the system must be extensible in itself, and capable of interacting with Lokalise through the public API and/or the upcoming engines.

These apps communicate with Lokalise API and developers can use either API tokens or the OAuth 2 flow for authentication. At the moment, this is the most common architecture for apps that external developers are building. For example, you could create an app that imports/exports translation files, adds users, creates projects and tasks, etc.

To build such an app you would typically follow these steps:

• Obtain an API token or set up an OAuth 2 flow. To achieve the latter, you'll have to reach our support team to register a new OAuth 2 app.
• Set up your dev environment.
• Use API or OAuth 2 tokens to send API requests.

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Code samples

You can find examples of building third-party apps with different technologies under the "Sample apps" section.

Webhook apps

Webhook apps use Lokalise webhooks to listen and react to certain events. You can set up a web server that listens to incoming events and, for example, notifies users via Discord, Telegram, or any other messaging platform. On top of that, one could create an app that uses Lokalise API to automatically set up all the necessary webhooks and then listen to the incoming events.

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Code samples

You can find examples of building webhook apps with different technologies under the "Sample apps" section.

Hosted apps

These apps are hosted by Lokalise. Examples of such apps include GitHub and Contentful integrations, or custom placeholders, which are built right inside the Lokalise codebase.

Lokalise also allows anyone to install and run their content apps and custom processors from our platform. If you’re interested in this architecture, please check Lokalise engines.

Publishing your own app

Apps can be built privately to suit your custom and bespoke business needs; in this case, they won’t get listed on the Lokalise apps marketplace.

However, if you’ve built an app, we really encourage you to publish it on Lokalise Apps, so any Lokalise customer can also install and use them. If you are interested in building a public app too, we would love to hear from you! You will need to follow these steps to get started:

• Get in touch with our Partnerships team at [email protected] and tell us a bit more about your app
• If you have any technical questions please contact us at [email protected] or via our support chat.
• Once your app is ready to share, submit it for review and approval
• Once approved, our partnerships and marketing team will work with you on your app listing and launch plan

Read more on Review and publish your app.