mint

README

English | 繁體中文

🌿 Mint

Minimalist AI Translation CLI — Simple. Fast. Intuitive.

Mint is a lightweight, LLM-powered translation tool for the command line. Choose your provider (Google Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, or local Ollama) and get fluent translations instantly with optional smart language detection.

---

✨ Why Mint?

• Minimal — One command, no noise
• Multi-provider — Google Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, or local Ollama
• Flexible — Any language pair; smart auto-detection optional
• Composable — Pipe-friendly stdin/stdout, fits any workflow

---

📋 Installation

pipx

pipx install mint-ai

npm

npm install -g mint-ai

Automated install (one-liner)

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/min0625/mint/main/script/install.sh)"

Auto-detects OS and architecture (Linux/macOS, x86_64/arm64), and installs to ~/.local/bin. Override with MINT_INSTALL_DIR or pin a version with MINT_VERSION=v1.0.0.

go install

go install github.com/min0625/mint/cmd/mint@latest

Requires Go 1.21+. Binary lands in $GOPATH/bin (usually ~/go/bin).

Manual download

Pre-built binaries at GitHub Releases

Verify installation

mint --version

---

🚀 Quick Start

1. Set your provider

# Google Gemini (free tier available — https://aistudio.google.com/apikey)
export MINT_PROVIDER=google-genai
export MINT_API_KEY=your_gemini_api_key

# OpenAI
export MINT_PROVIDER=openai
export MINT_API_KEY=sk-...

# Anthropic
export MINT_PROVIDER=anthropic
export MINT_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

# Local Ollama (no API key needed)
export MINT_PROVIDER=ollama
export MINT_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434
export MINT_MODEL_NAME=llama2

2. Translate

mint --target ja "Good morning"
mint -t zh-TW "Good morning"

echo "The quick brown fox" | mint -t fr
cat document.txt | mint -t zh-TW

3. Smart language detection

export MINT_TARGET_LANG=en
mint "早安"             # Detects Chinese → translates to en
mint "Good mooorning"  # Detects English → corrects grammar & spelling

# Rotate across multiple targets
export MINT_TARGET_LANG=en,zh-TW,ja
mint "Hello"       # → zh-TW
mint "你好"        # → ja
mint "こんにちは"   # → en

---

🔑 Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Default
MINT_PROVIDER	google-genai | openai | anthropic | ollama	— (required)
MINT_API_KEY	API key (required for all providers except ollama)	—
MINT_BASE_URL	Custom endpoint (required for ollama)	Provider default
MINT_MODEL_NAME	Model to use	gemini-3.1-flash-lite / gpt-4o-mini / claude-haiku-4-5 / none
MINT_TARGET_LANG	Target language(s), e.g. en or en,zh-TW,ja	System locale or en

---

🎯 Design Principles

Principle	Description
Zero-dependency install	Single binary, works out of the box
Multi-provider	Supports major LLM services plus local alternatives
Composability	Pairs seamlessly with grep, sed, xargs, and friends
Transparent output	Results to stdout, errors to stderr
Environment-friendly	API keys via env vars, no config file pollution

---

🗺 Roadmap

• Multi-LLM provider support (Google Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama)
• Smart language detection and multi-language rotation via MINT_TARGET_LANG
• Explicit target language via --target / -t flag
• GoReleaser multi-platform binary release (Linux / macOS / Windows)
• Batch translation mode
• Glossary / custom dictionary support
• Output format options (plain text, JSON, Markdown)
• Caching for repeated translations

---

📄 License

Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE for details.