Hi folks,
When self-hosting Discourse, most admins edit containers/app.yml (standalone template) and related YAML files. The default samples are well commented, but only in English. For non-English admins, this becomes a common source of mistakes—especially because YAML is whitespace-sensitive and many options are subtle.
I recently made a fully commented Chinese version for my own deployment, and noticed there’s already a Chinese snippet in the translated docs, which was really helpful. Discourse Meta
That made me think: instead of relying on community one-offs per language, could we provide official multi-language commented templates?
Proposal:
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Add an AI-assisted workflow (or script) that takes the default
samples/standalone.yml/containers/app.ymland generates comment translations. -
Publish a small set of officially supported variants (e.g., en, zh_CN, zh_TW, ja, ko, es, fr, de).
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Keep the YAML keys/values identical; only translate the comments.
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Make it available in the install guide or
discourse-setupas an optional output.
Why this helps:
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Lowers the barrier for new self-hosters worldwide.
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Reduces misconfiguration caused by misunderstanding comments.
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Makes the “safe defaults” easier to learn without hunting through docs.
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Easy to maintain: translations can be regenerated when templates change.
If people like the idea, I’m happy to share my Chinese commented version as a starting point, or help test an automated pipeline.
What do you think? Would this be useful to include in the official install experience?
