Design in the real copy

Seven steps, each with the screen you will be looking at. The LocalizeMe screens are captured from the app. The Figma dialogs are drawn label for label from the real ones, so the blue outline on each marks exactly what to click.

In any Figma Design or Figma Make file, open the agent and add LocalizeMe as a custom connector.

Where to click

1. Add context
2. ›
3. Connectors
4. ›
5. Manage
6. ›
7. Created by you
8. ›
9. Create

Inside the agent’s prompt box, in any Figma Design or Figma Make file.

1. On the first page, name it LocalizeMe. Icon, tagline and description are optional.
2. On the second page, paste the server URL below and leave Advanced settings closed.
3. Click Create, then Connect on the connector that appears.

https://sandbox-api.localizeme.app/mcpCopy

Custom connectors need a paid Figma plan and a Full seat. If the Create button is missing, that is the reason, not anything on the LocalizeMe side.

Clicking Connect opens this screen on localizeme.app. Approve it once and Figma keeps its own token.

Choose the access level

Read & edit if designers will push keys back. Read only is enough to pull copy, and the write tools are simply never offered to the agent.

Figma registers itself and lands here by itself; there is no client id to paste. The connector then acts as this one account and sees only its projects. If a project is missing later, you approved as the wrong account: disconnect in Developer access and connect again.

No browser to approve in?

An admin publishing one connector to a whole organisation can carry an lz_ key instead. In the dashboard: Developer access → Access keys → Create key, then in Figma, Advanced settings → Custom request headers, named Authorization with this value.

header valueCopy

Bearer lz_YOUR_KEY

Open the connector’s Manage panel. Tools are split into two tabs, and the defaults are deliberately cautious.

Where to click

1. Add context
2. ›
3. Connectors
4. ›
5. Manage
6. ›
7. LocalizeMe
8. ›
9. Manage

Read tools

Listing projects, keys, languages and exports. Set the whole group to Always run, or a single pull stops to ask permission three or four times before it reaches the copy.

Write tools

Creating keys and writing translations. Leave these on Ask to run. A push then shows exactly what it intends to create and waits, which is what you want the first few times.

A tool set to Never run is not an error when the agent reaches for it. It answers nothing and carries on, so if a push reports it could not create a key, check this panel first.

A skill is a short Markdown file that turns “match the layers to keys and pull the German” into one command the whole team runs the same way.

Where to click

1. Add context
2. ›
3. Skills
4. ›
5. Add skill
6. ›
7. Upload a file

Download the skilllocalizeme.md · one file, no dependencies

Upload it, check the preview, click Add. It is now /localizeme in every file where the agent is available. You can also paste the text and let the agent adapt it to your own key-naming convention.

Select a frame, then ask. The agent reads every text layer, matches each to a key, and swaps in the value for the language you named.

in the Figma chatCopy

/localizeme switch the selected frame to German

Font, size and layout are left exactly as they were. Each matched layer is renamed to its key, so from then on the key is visible in the Layers panel to anyone with the file open, no agent needed. The report comes back in three lists: layers updated, layers with no key, and keys still missing a value in that language.

A price, a sample address, a name: anything that matches no key is left alone and listed, so nothing is quietly overwritten. Text that no longer fits is reported rather than resized. Say “French” instead and the same frame switches again.

Where the key is visible, without asking the agent

Because every synced layer is renamed to its key, the key is simply the layer name. Any designer or viewer reads it in the Layers panel, in the selection header when the layer is picked, and in Dev Mode’s inspect panel. No connector, no prompt, no LocalizeMe account needed to look.

That last part is the useful signal. A layer still named after its text is a string LocalizeMe does not know about, so scanning the Layers panel tells a designer what is unmanaged before anyone runs anything.

The rename is also what keeps matching stable. Figma names a text layer after its content until someone renames it, so an untouched layer called “Pay now” becomes “Jetzt bezahlen” the moment you pull German and can no longer be found by name. Binding each layer to a string variable would put the key on the text property itself and make languages a mode switch, which is the natural next step, but it changes how frames are built so it is not what this guide does today.

Wrote fresh copy straight on the canvas? Push it up. The agent proposes a key per layer, shows you the list, and writes only after you approve.

in the Figma chatCopy

/localizeme create keys for the text layers I just added.
Skip the price and the sample address, and show me the names first.

It skips the things that only look like copy, such as a price or a sample address, names each key after the frame and the text, and renames the layer to its key so the next pull matches by name.

Each key is stamped with a link back to the frame it came from, which is the Design link in the next picture. Writing needs a read & edit connection, and Figma asks before each write tool runs unless you chose otherwise in step 3.

One key, in both places at once

Every pull and push renames each matched layer to its key, which pins it: Figma otherwise names a text layer after whatever it says, so a layer called “Pay now” would quietly become “Jetzt bezahlen” the moment you pull German. With the key as its name, a designer or a viewer reads the key straight off the Layers panel, and later pulls match by name. In LocalizeMe the key keeps a link straight back to the frame it came from.

Nothing has to be handed over. The keys the designer just created are in the project, so the next pull in CI has them. Same keys, same names, no copying.

# once, per repo
localizeme init --project 42 --format json --path locales

# in the build — the keys the designer made are already there
localizeme pull

Worth knowing first