wtf is claude-cli-translator?

This tool is a Windows helper that adds a translation pane next to the Claude Code terminal, without changing any of Claude Code's own files. It is not an official Anthropic project. It only translates text that you manually select in the terminal, it does not read the screen automatically. The setup uses a split Windows Terminal window: the left pane runs Claude Code as usual, and the right pane runs a small Python script that shows translated text. When you select English text on the left and press Ctrl+Alt+T, a Python hotkey program copies that selection and sends it to the translation pane. Double tapping Ctrl also works as a backup trigger. In menus, command pickers, or the rewind screen inside Claude Code, you need to hold Shift while dragging to select text, because otherwise Windows Terminal cannot make a normal selection there. The translation pane itself calls a DeepSeek or other OpenAI compatible API and displays the result in Chinese in a compact view. The repo includes the main translator script, two versions of the hotkey trigger (one in Python, one as an AutoHotkey backup), several PowerShell scripts to launch the split pane setup with one command, install a desktop shortcut, adjust pane sizes, or send clipboard contents manually, a configuration template, and a glossary file of Claude Code specific terms to improve translation accuracy. Setup requires Windows Terminal, Python 3.9 or newer, and an API key for a service like DeepSeek, entered as an environment variable rather than stored in the repo. The README includes an offline dry run mode for testing the translation pipeline without calling the API. It also includes a privacy warning: any text you select and send gets forwarded to your configured API provider, so you should avoid selecting secrets, private source code, or sensitive data unless you trust that provider. Known limits include that it cannot preserve terminal colors or cursor position, translation quality depends on the model and glossary used, and the hotkeys are global rather than limited to this one application.