Issue #105 Response Draft

Status: prepared for Phase 55 / task 55.4.1

Issue: #105 Can the default language be changed to English?

Draft Reply

Thanks for opening this.

Yes. The default user-facing language is now English for new distributed surfaces, while Japanese remains preserved as an explicit opt-in.

What changed:

• New setup templates render English by default.
• The config schema and example default i18n.language to en.
• Shipped skill metadata uses English in description, while keeping both description-en and description-ja.
• Japanese users can still opt in with i18n.language: ja, CLAUDE_CODE_HARNESS_LANG=ja, or the Japanese locale templates.
• Japanese workflow discovery is preserved. Important Japanese triggers such as 実装して, レビューして, and 計画作って remain covered by the skill metadata or usage text.
• Internal Plans.md status markers such as cc:完了, pm:確認済, and cc:WIP remain protocol values. They are intentionally not translated as part of this change, so existing Plans tooling keeps working.

Verification commands:

bash scripts/i18n/check-translations.sh
bash tests/test-i18n-default-language.sh
bash tests/test-i18n-skill-frontmatter.sh
bash tests/test-i18n-locale-roundtrip.sh
bash tests/test-setup-language-rendering.sh
bash scripts/sync-skill-mirrors.sh --check
node scripts/build-opencode.js
node scripts/validate-opencode.js
bash tests/test-codex-package.sh
./tests/validate-plugin.sh
bash scripts/ci/check-consistency.sh
cd go && go test ./... && go vet ./...

The CI path also runs the i18n regression suite through .github/workflows/validate-plugin.yml, and scripts/ci/check-consistency.sh now includes an i18n gate so distribution preflight catches language drift before release.

Pre-Close Guardrails

These guardrails are the state-migration safety notes for closing the issue.

Item	Current state	Target state	Required behavior
Default locale	Some user-facing surfaces historically assumed Japanese.	New distributed surfaces default to English.	Missing or unset locale resolves to en.
Explicit Japanese	Existing users may set i18n.language: ja or CLAUDE_CODE_HARNESS_LANG=ja.	Japanese remains opt-in.	Valid ja must be preserved and must not be overwritten by startup or validation.
Skill metadata	Skills may contain bilingual metadata and mirrored copies.	description equals description-en; description-ja remains present.	Mirror checks and i18n checks must cover root, Codex, and OpenCode skill surfaces.
Status markers	Plans tooling stores Japanese protocol markers.	Protocol markers remain unchanged.	Writers keep canonical markers; readers keep alias compatibility.
Setup templates	Default and Japanese templates coexist.	Default setup emits English; Japanese setup remains reachable.	Template rendering tests must verify both paths and unresolved placeholders.

Invariants:

• Do not translate internal Plans.md state markers during this issue.
• Do not delete Japanese templates, Japanese README, or Japanese skill routing text.
• Do not rewrite explicit user locale state during validation.
• Re-running locale checks or setup rendering tests must be idempotent.
• Mirror validation must prove packaged skill surfaces match their source of truth.

Rollback:

• The functional rollback is forward-fix preferred: restore the failing surface, rerun the i18n suite, then rerun full preflight.
• If the CI gate itself causes a false positive, revert only the gate change while keeping the already-shipped English/Japanese state intact.
• Because this task adds validation and documentation, it does not require destructive data rollback.

Abort conditions:

• Any i18n regression command fails.
• sync-skill-mirrors.sh --check reports drift.
• build-opencode.js or validate-opencode.js creates unexpected distribution drift.
• validate-plugin.sh, check-consistency.sh, Go tests, or Go vet fail.

Dry-run and verification:

• Treat all commands in the draft reply as the pre-close dry-run.
• Compare git status --short before and after node scripts/build-opencode.js && node scripts/validate-opencode.js; only intentional docs, CI, or gate changes should remain.
• Keep Issue #105 open until the response draft and verification output agree.