Translation Extractor

The translations:extract command scans PHP and Blade files for string-based translation helpers and keeps your lang/<locale>.json files up to date. It lives in App\Console\Commands\ExtractTranslations and can run against the whole project or a curated list of folders.

Existing translations are never overwritten. Newly discovered keys are appended with the key itself as the placeholder value so translators can fill them in later.

Signature & options

The command definition mirrors its usage examples, so what you see in the table below is exactly what the $signature block declares:

php artisan translations:extract

--lang=en : Target language (resources/lang/<lang>.json)
--paths=* : Limit scan to one or more directories
--dry-run : Only show keys without writing any files

Option	Type	Default	What it controls
`--lang=`	String	`en`	Chooses which `lang/<locale>.json` file to update (or create if missing).
`--paths=`	Array of paths	`app`, `resources/views`	Limits the scan to specific directories when you do not want to traverse the whole codebase.
`--dry-run`	Boolean flag	`false`	Prints keys to the console instead of touching any files—perfect for CI or quick audits.

Usage

Baseline extraction

php artisan translations:extract

Scans app/ and resources/views/, then updates lang/en.json.

French translations with custom folders

php artisan translations:extract --lang=fr --paths=app --paths=resources/views/components

Targets the French JSON file while limiting the scan to the application logic and Blade components.

Dry-run in CI

php artisan translations:extract --dry-run --paths=resources/views/pages

Lists the missing keys in the console so the pipeline can fail if translators need to catch up.

Where to find it

Command app/Console/Commands/ExtractTranslations.php
Language store lang/<locale>.json