First translation (tagent-cli)

tagent-cli needs no setup: it translates with Google out of the box, into your system language (English if Tagent doesn’t know it). On first start it creates its configuration file, tagent-cli.toml (see File locations).

From the command line

tagent-cli "Hello world"

prints the translation and exits. A single word shows a dictionary entry instead:

tagent-cli translate

переводить
Глагол
  переводить [transfer, translate, convert, move, interpret, put]
  транслировать [translate, transmit, relay, compile]
  ...

Pick other languages for one run with -l: tagent-cli -l de "Hello world" (into German), tagent-cli -l en de "Hello world" (from English into German).

The interactive prompt and the hotkey

Run it without arguments:

tagent-cli

It prints a short banner (languages, providers, hotkeys, the main commands) and a prompt with the language pair. Type text and press Enter:

[auto → ru]: How are you?
[google]: Как вы?

While it runs, select text in any other application and press Alt+A: the translation appears in the terminal. Alt+S reads the selected text aloud. The hotkeys need Windows or Linux; on a Wayland desktop such as GNOME, run tagent-cli --install-desktop once first and confirm the keys in the dialog that appears at the next start (see Hotkeys: On Wayland).

Type /h for the list of commands, /q to quit.

Next steps

• Change the languages: /l en de at the prompt, then /save to keep them. See Interactive commands.
• Change the hotkey: Hotkeys.
• Translate with DeepL or a local model: How providers work.