Stop forgetting to regenerate your Flutter translations! 🚀

I got tired of manually running dart run intl_utils:generate every time I edited my .arb translation files. So I automated it with a simple file watcher script.

How to use it:

Just run this command in your terminal:

dart run scripts/watch_translations.dart

The script will watch your lib/l10n directory and automatically regenerate translations whenever you modify any .arb file.

Here's the implementation:

import 'dart:io';



void main() async {

  final l10nDir = Directory('lib/l10n');



  if (!l10nDir.existsSync()) {

    print('Error: lib/l10n directory does not exist');

    exit(1);

  }



  print('Watching for changes in lib/l10n/*.arb files...');

  print('Press Ctrl+C to stop\n');



  // Watch the directory

  await for (final event in l10nDir.watch()) {

    if (event.path.endsWith('.arb') && event.type == FileSystemEvent.modify) {

      print('Detected change in: ${event.path}');

      print('Generating translations...');



      final result = await Process.run(

        'dart',

        ['run', 'intl_utils:generate'],

        runInShell: true,

      );



      if (result.exitCode == 0) {

        print('✓ Translations generated successfully\n');

      } else {

        print('✗ Error generating translations:');

        print(result.stderr);

      }

    }

  }

}

What it does:

✅ Monitors the lib/l10n directory for changes to .arb files

✅ Detects when translation files are modified

✅ Automatically runs the translation generation command

✅ Provides clear feedback on success or failure

Now I can edit translation files and the generated code updates automatically. No more manual steps or missed regenerations.

The script uses Dart's built-in Directory.watch() API to monitor file system events. It's lightweight, runs in the background, and has been a huge time-saver.

Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest ones that remove friction from your workflow.

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