Dev.to Blog Translation Tool

A command-line tool that automatically translates your Dev.to draft articles from any language to English using Google's Gemini AI.

Features

• 🔍 Automatically fetches all draft articles from your Dev.to account (supports pagination for 300+ articles)
• 🌐 Translates article titles and content to English using Gemini 2.0 Flash Lite
• 🧠 Smart language detection - automatically skips articles with English titles
• 📝 Preserves markdown formatting, code blocks, and technical terms
• 🧹 Automatically removes Jekyll/Hugo frontmatter metadata before translation
• 🚀 Automatically publishes translated articles to Dev.to
• 🔒 Secure API key management using environment variables
• ⚡ Fast and efficient translation processing with rate limiting
• 📊 Detailed progress reporting and statistics

Prerequisites

• Go 1.21 or higher
• Dev.to account with API access
• Google Gemini API key

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/al03034132/devto-blog-translation-tool.git
cd devto-blog-translation-tool

2. Install dependencies:

go mod download

3. Set up environment variables:

cp .env.example .env

4. Edit .env and add your API keys:

DEVTO_API_KEY=your_devto_api_key_here
GEMINI_API_KEY=your_gemini_api_key_here

Getting API Keys

Dev.to API Key

1. Go to Dev.to Settings > Extensions
2. Generate a new API key
3. Copy the key to your .env file

Google Gemini API Key

1. Visit Google AI Studio
2. Create a new API key
3. Copy the key to your .env file

Usage

Run the translation tool:

go run cmd/translator/main.go

The tool will:

1. Display a confirmation prompt explaining what will happen
2. Load your API keys from the .env file
3. Fetch all draft articles from your Dev.to account (with pagination support)
4. For each draft article:
   • Display the article ID and original title
   • Check if the title is already in English (skip if yes)
   • Translate title and content to English using Gemini AI
   • UPDATE the existing draft article with translated content
   • Publish the updated article
5. Display a summary with statistics:
   • Number of articles translated and published
   • Number of articles skipped (already in English)
   • Number of failed translations

⚠️ IMPORTANT NOTES

1. Updates Existing Drafts: This tool UPDATES your existing draft articles, it does NOT create new articles
2. Uses PUT Request: The tool uses PUT /articles/:id to update the same article with translated content
3. Publishes Automatically: After translation, the article will be automatically published
4. Confirmation Required: The tool will ask for confirmation before starting
5. Shows Article IDs: Each processed article will display its ID so you can verify it's updating the correct article
6. Frontmatter Removal: Automatically removes Jekyll/Hugo frontmatter (metadata between ---) before translation to avoid translating metadata

Example Output

⚠️  WARNING ⚠️
=====================================
This tool will:
1. Fetch ALL your draft articles from Dev.to
2. Translate non-English articles to English
3. UPDATE the existing draft articles with translations
4. PUBLISH the updated articles

Note: This will UPDATE your existing drafts,
      NOT create new articles.
=====================================

Do you want to continue? (yes/no): yes

✅ Starting translation and publishing process...

🔍 Fetching draft articles from Dev.to...
  Fetched page 1 (30 articles, total: 30)
  Fetched page 2 (30 articles, total: 60)
  ...

✅ Found 300 draft article(s)

[1/300] Article ID: 2457408
  Original Title: 使用 Gemini 3.0 Pro Image API 打造 PDF 文字優化工具
  Translating title... ✅
  Translated Title: Building a PDF Text Optimization Tool with Gemini 3.0 Pro Image API
  Translating content... (removing frontmatter) ✅
  Updating article ID 2457408 and publishing... ✅ Published!

[2/300] Article ID: 2457409
  Original Title: Introduction to Machine Learning
  ⏭️  Skipping: Title is already in English

...

========================================
SUMMARY
========================================
✅ Translated & Published: 250
⏭️  Skipped (English): 45
❌ Failed: 5
📊 Total processed: 300
========================================

🎉 Process completed!

Project Structure

devto-blog-translation-tool/
├── cmd/
│   └── translator/
│       └── main.go              # Main application entry point
├── internal/
│   ├── devto/
│   │   └── client.go            # Dev.to API client (with pagination & publish)
│   ├── gemini/
│   │   └── client.go            # Gemini API client for translation
│   ├── translator/
│   │   └── translator.go        # Translation service logic
│   └── utils/
│       ├── language.go          # Language detection utilities
│       └── markdown.go          # Markdown/frontmatter processing
├── .env                         # Your API keys (DO NOT COMMIT!)
├── .env.example                 # Template for environment variables
├── .gitignore                   # Git ignore file
├── go.mod                       # Go module file
├── test_security.sh             # Security verification script
└── README.md                    # This file

Frontmatter Handling

The tool automatically detects and removes Jekyll/Hugo frontmatter before translation. This prevents metadata from being translated.

Example:

Original content with frontmatter:

---
title: [VS Code][Colab] Google Officially Releases Colab VS Code Plugin
published: false
date: 2025-11-14 00:00:00 UTC
tags:
canonical_url: https://www.evanlin.com/colab-vscode-plugin/
---

# Introduction

This is the actual article content...

The tool will:

1. Detect the frontmatter (content between ---)
2. Remove it before translation
3. Only translate the actual article content:

# Introduction

This is the actual article content...

Supported formats:

• Standard frontmatter: --- ... ---
• Code block style: ``` ... ```

Security

🔒 IMPORTANT: This project uses environment variables to store sensitive API keys.

• NEVER commit your .env file to Git
• The .env file is already listed in .gitignore
• Use .env.example as a template for other developers
• API keys are never logged or displayed in the output

Building

To build a standalone executable:

go build -o translator cmd/translator/main.go

Then run:

./translator

Troubleshooting

"DEVTO_API_KEY environment variable is not set"

Make sure you have created a .env file in the project root with your API keys.

"failed to fetch draft articles: API request failed with status 401"

Your Dev.to API key may be invalid or expired. Generate a new key from Dev.to settings.

"failed to generate translation"

Check that your Gemini API key is valid and you haven't exceeded the rate limits.

Dependencies

• godotenv - Environment variable management
• generative-ai-go - Google Gemini AI SDK

License

MIT License

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Author

Created for translating Dev.to blog posts efficiently.