Argos Translate

Use this skill when a request names Argos Translate, argostranslate, argos-translate, argospm, .argosmodel, language-pair packages, offline translation, or the package/configuration errors that come with them.

What this skill covers

• Translating text from Python or the argos-translate CLI.
• Loading installed language pairs and understanding translation objects.
• Updating the package index and installing/removing language packages.
• Reading and changing runtime settings such as device selection, sentence-boundary mode, and package/cache locations.
• Troubleshooting missing dependencies, missing packages, invalid archives, and optional backend errors.

Start here

1. Read references/api-reference.md for the verified public modules, classes, and functions.
2. Read references/cli-reference.md for the supported argos-translate and argospm commands.
3. Read references/configuration.md before changing environment variables or config files.
4. Read references/troubleshooting.md when imports, package installs, CLI calls, or translation setup fail.
5. Read references/repo-provenance.md when you need to check whether this skill still matches the current checkout.

Install and minimal check

• Install from PyPI: pip install argostranslate
• Or from a local checkout: pip install -e .
• For local verification work, also install pytest.

Minimal smoke check:

python -I -c "from importlib.metadata import version; print(version('argostranslate'))"
python -I -c "from argostranslate import package, translate; print(package.__name__, translate.__name__)"

If the package import or CLI help fails, run scripts/check_runtime.py from the installed environment before debugging anything else.

Route map

Translation workflows

Use sub-skills/translation/ when the task is about:

• Translating text from Python.
• Using argos-translate with --from-lang and --to-lang.
• Reading from stdin versus a positional text argument.
• Understanding installed language pairs and translation lookup.
• Optional device, chunking, or remote-provider settings that affect translation behavior.
• Sentence-boundary behavior or tag-preserving translation behavior.

Package-management workflows

Use sub-skills/package-management/ when the task is about:

• argospm update, search, install, list, or remove.
• Installing a local .argosmodel archive.
• Inspecting package metadata or package contents.
• Package directory layout, cached downloads, or stale index/package errors.

Shared runtime helpers

• scripts/check_runtime.py — run this to inspect the installed package, signatures, and basic translation smoke behavior.
• scripts/completion.bash — read or source this if you want Argos Translate shell completion for argos-translate and argospm.

When to read more

• Read references/package-format.md before changing how .argosmodel files are inspected or installed.
• Read references/configuration.md before setting ARGOS_DEVICE_TYPE, ARGOS_CHUNK_TYPE, ARGOS_PACKAGE_INDEX, or package/cache directories.
• Read references/cli-reference.md whenever the exact command syntax matters.
• Read references/troubleshooting.md whenever the failure mentions a missing wheel, missing model package, invalid archive, or optional backend.

What not to route here

• The separate argos-translate-gui repository and GUI-specific workflows.
• Generic Python packaging advice that does not depend on Argos Translate behavior.
• Maintainer-only release scripts, snap publishing, or PyPI upload workflows.

Evidence basis

This skill was distilled from the repository source, README, docs, tests, and installed-package inspection for Argos Translate 1.11.1. Read references/repo-provenance.md before treating it as current for a different checkout.