When startups dream of global expansion, they often envision the exciting possibilities of new markets and revenue streams. What they don’t see is the complex web of technical challenges lurking beneath the surface of internationalization. In a recent episode of The Agile Localization Podcast, host Stefan Huyghe sat down with Alex Bit and Mo Mohebifar, Co-founders of Codemod, to break down the challenges of i18n, the role of AI, and how automation can turn a daunting process into a manageable one. This isn’t your typical high-level, buzzword-filled conversation. Alex and Mo are engineers at heart, deeply technical, battle-tested, and obsessed with building practical tools that solve real developer pain. They come armed with years of experience at companies like Meta, Brex, and Shopify, and they’ve built Codemod from the ground up to make large-scale code migrations faster, smarter, and less soul-crushing.
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1. Why Internationalization is So Hard
Internationalization sounds simple on the surface: translate your app and go global. But as Alex and Mo explain, it’s anything but. The challenges start with a lack of experience. Many engineering leaders tackling i18n for the first time don’t know how long it will take, which libraries to choose, or how to orchestrate the changes across multiple teams. And that’s just the beginning.
Mo paints a vivid picture of what often happens: startups hardcode strings during the early stages of development, only to find themselves scrambling to support multiple languages just before a big funding round or international launch. The result? A mad rush to rewrite massive portions of the codebase in one quarter, juggling team bandwidth, merge conflicts, and performance hits.
2. How Codemod Automates the Hardest Parts
That’s where Codemod comes in. Originally a term coined by Meta, a “codemod” is a code modification tool, essentially a script or bot that transforms patterns in your code based on the Abstract Syntax Tree (AST). Think of it like a super-smart find-and-replace, but for thousands of lines of complex code, across multiple teams and frameworks.
Alex and Mo have taken this concept and built an entire platform around it. Their goal? To make large-scale migrations, like internationalization, not just possible, but easy.
Codemod does the heavy lifting:
- Scans your codebase to find hardcoded strings
- Propose the right i18n libraries based on your stack
- Transforms the code automatically, even handling tricky cases like sentences broken across multiple elements
- Orchestrates the PRs, splitting them by code owners and limiting file changes per PR to keep everything manageable
It’s automation at its finest. No more pushing tedious i18n tasks on already-overloaded engineers. Codemod’s infrastructure makes it possible to run a clean, coordinated campaign, even across codebases with tens of thousands of hardcoded strings.
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3. AI as a Piece of the Puzzle
Codemod uses AI. But no, it’s not just about throwing your entire codebase into ChatGPT and hoping for the best. Instead, they take an agentic approach, using AI where it’s most effective:
- Suggesting libraries and tools based on the structure of your code
- Generating i18n keys for newly extracted strings
- Automatically fixing small issues during transformation
AI is powerful, but Codemod combines it with compiler tech and a deep understanding of developer workflows.
4. Seamless Integration with GitHub and Crowdin
Codemod doesn’t live in a vacuum. It’s designed to integrate seamlessly with your existing tools, starting with GitHub.
You can:
- Trigger scans directly from your GitHub repo
- Generate and manage multiple PRs
- Review, tweak, and accept changes through PR comments and AI assistance
Crowdin also plays a crucial role. Once Codemod finishes the technical transformation, Crowdin steps in to handle translations, supporting all major message formats like ICU, Fluent, and JSON. It’s a perfect example of continuous localization in action, development, and translation moving in sync, without blockers or bottlenecks.
5. Advice for First-Time i18n Campaigns
For technical leaders just getting started, Alex offers some key insights:
- Don’t DIY: Avoid ad hoc solutions. Use mature libraries and tools from the start.
- Automate early and often: Leverage automation to reduce manual effort and ensure consistency.
- Think long-term: Internationalization isn’t a one-and-done migration; it’s an ongoing process. Invest in maintenance workflows.
- Start with analytics: Codemod offers a free scan of your codebase to count hardcoded strings. It’s a great starting point for planning your campaign.
Conclusion
Internationalization doesn’t have to be scary. With tools like Codemod and Crowdin, what used to be a months-long headache can now be a streamlined, automated, and even enjoyable part of your development process.
So, if you’re sitting on a mountain of hardcoded strings, or you’re planning a global expansion, take a cue from Alex and Mo, don’t go it alone. Automate it. Analyze it. Codemod it.
Alex and Mo’s Backgrounds
Alex is the Co-founder and CEO of CodeMod, bringing vast experience from his six-year tenure at Meta where he built automation platforms serving 70+ engineering teams. A passionate advocate for the future of software development and developer tools, Alex specializes in making code migrations and internationalization more efficient and accessible. His work at Codemod focuses on automating tedious coding tasks, allowing developers to focus on innovation while making enterprise-grade migration tools available to the broader development community. Mo serves as CTO and Co-founder of CodeMod, with over a decade of experience in building transpilers and code modification tools. Known for creating LabUp (an ES5 to ES6 modernization tool), VDAC, and React Forget, Mo brings deep technical expertise in code transformation and internationalization automation. His experience leading internationalization efforts at Brex has shaped CodeMod’s approach to making complex code migrations more manageable and efficient for development teams worldwide.
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