VocaBuilder

A Raycast extension that translates words and short text between languages with the AI provider of your choice — Gemini, Anthropic, OpenAI, or any OpenAI-compatible server — and saves a local translation history to help you build vocabulary over time.

Features

• Bring your own AI provider — use a Gemini, Anthropic, or OpenAI API key, or point the extension at an OpenAI-compatible server such as OpenRouter, Ollama, or LM Studio
• Multi-sense word translations — for ambiguous words, review up to 5 senses, each with part of speech, pronunciation transcription, and example sentences, and save the one you want to keep
• Typo correction — misspelled word input is auto-corrected before translating, with a visual indicator showing the original input
• Word pronunciation — hear the source word or its translation through Gemini or OpenAI speech, or the macOS system voice for providers without a speech model
• Flashcards — review saved word translations with spaced repetition
• Separate history per language pair — 17 languages in any pairing, switchable from a dropdown inside each command; each pair keeps its own history and flashcard deck
• History export — export saved history as JSON, an Anki-ready Basic note file, or Quizlet-ready TSV
• Clipboard suggestion — optionally prefill a safe word or short phrase from the clipboard when the command opens

Getting Started

1. Get an API key from Google AI Studio (Gemini, free tier available), the Anthropic Console, or the OpenAI Platform.
2. Run the Translate command and paste the key when prompted. With Provider left on Auto-Detect, the extension recognizes Gemini (AIza…), Anthropic (sk-ant-…), and OpenAI (sk-…) keys.
3. For an OpenAI-compatible server, open the extension preferences, set Provider to OpenAI-Compatible Server, and fill in API Server URL (for example https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 or http://localhost:11434/v1) and Translation Model. Local servers that need no key accept any value in API Key.
4. (Optional) In the preferences, set default languages, override the translation or speech model, choose the macOS system voice for pronunciation, or enable clipboard suggestions on open.

Provider	Default translation model	Pronunciation
Gemini	gemini-3.5-flash-lite	gemini-3.1-flash-tts-preview
Anthropic	claude-haiku-5-5	macOS system voice
OpenAI	gpt-6-luna	gpt-4o-mini-tts
OpenAI-compatible	none — set Translation Model	macOS system voice

OpenAI speech overrides tts-1 and tts-1-hd use the macOS system voice to preserve the selected pronunciation language. Pronunciation is unavailable when that language has no system voice.

API Server URL also routes Gemini, Anthropic, or OpenAI traffic through a proxy or gateway. Your API key is sent to whichever host you configure, so plain http is accepted only for local addresses, and URLs carrying credentials or a query string are rejected.

Commands

Command	Description
Translate	Translate a word or short text
Translation History	Open your saved translations
View Flashcards	Review words you've saved

Supported Languages

English, Ukrainian, Polish, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Czech, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Turkish, Russian, Belarusian

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
⌘ C	Copy translation
⌘ ⇧ L	Pronounce source word
⌘ ⇧ R	Pronounce translation
⌘ 1 → ⌘ 5	Pick a word sense and save it to history
⌘ ⇧ H	Open History (from Translate)
⌘ ⇧ T	Toggle source and target languages
⌘ D	Delete entry (from History)
⌘ ⇧ D	Clear all history
⌘ E	Export history as JSON
⌘ ⇧ A	Export word history for Anki
⌘ ⇧ Q	Export word history for Quizlet

Development

Use the Node version pinned in .nvmrc — Node 22.22.2, which bundles npm 10.9.7 and matches the current Raycast extension toolchain. Then run the extension in Raycast dev mode:

nvm use        # Node 22.22.2 / npm 10.9.7
npm install
npm run dev

Regenerate package-lock.json only on npm 10.x. npm 11 records optional peer dependencies differently, producing a lockfile that passes locally but fails the store CI's npm ci.

Built with the Raycast API, TypeScript + React, and Zod for runtime validation. Each provider is a small adapter over plain fetch in src/lib/providers/; the prompt, response validation, and sense de-duplication are shared in src/lib/translation.ts.

Tests run with npm test. The translation quality evals read their keys from .env — copy .env.example to start. npm run eval scores the Gemini provider and needs only GEMINI_API_KEY, which the eval judge also uses; npm run eval:all scores Gemini, Anthropic, and OpenAI side by side and also needs ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and OPENAI_API_KEY.

License

MIT