How to enforce identical keys across multiple i18n JSON translation files in TypeScript?

Question

I’m working on a multilingual application with the following structure:

messages/
├── en.d.json.ts   // baseline type definition
├── en.json
├── ja.json
├── zh-CN.json
└── zh-TW.json

Each file has nested keys, for example:

// en.json
{
  "navbar": {
    "navbar-mobile-menu": {
      "dashboard": "Dashboard",
      "profile": "Profile",
      "logout": "Logout"
    },
    "navbar-user-menu": {
      "login": "Login",
      "dashboard": "Dashboard",
      "profile": "Profile",
      "logout": "Logout"
    }
  }
}

I want TypeScript (and my IDE) to check at compile time that:

All translation files (ja.json, zh-CN.json, zh-TW.json) have exactly the same keys as en.json.
No keys are missing and no extra keys exist.
Ideally, TypeScript should give me red squiggles in VSCode if a key is missing or spelled incorrectly.

How can I set this up in a clean and maintainable way?

Maybe you need some extension to work with JSON Schema (json-schema.org)? — Anatoly
– Anatoly, Commented Oct 1 at 18:02

Elias Vågan · Accepted Answer · 2025-10-08 12:35:03Z

0

What you are describing is a linting issue, and eslint is the most common way to handle this for typescript today.

There's a plugin that does what you want with the lint rule i18n-json/identical-keys https://github.com/godaddy/eslint-plugin-i18n-json

answered Oct 8 at 12:35

Elias Vågan

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Kasra · Accepted Answer · 2025-10-02 05:08:51Z

-1

What you are looking for is i18n-ally, a VSCode extension that will help you manage your translation files with numerous options. Give it a try.

answered Oct 2 at 5:08

Kasra

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