I18N Rules (BI18N001–BI18N003)

July 3, 2026 · View on GitHub

Rules that detect internationalization issues in Gherkin feature files, such as hardcoded locale-specific text or non-ASCII characters.

Default severity: WARNING

BI18N001: hardcoded-date-format

Detects steps that contain hardcoded date or time formats (e.g., 12/31/2024, 2024-12-31, 31-12-2024). Date formats are locale-specific and may cause test failures in different regions or time zones.

The rule matches common date patterns:

  • MM/DD/YYYY and M/D/YYYY
  • YYYY-MM-DD and YYYY/MM/DD
  • DD-MM-YYYY and DD/MM/YYYY
  • HH:MM:SS time formats

Tags: i18n, date, locale

Since: 2.4.0

Example

??? example "Before → After"

**Before:**

```gherkin
Feature: Booking

  Scenario: Book on a date
    Given the booking date is "12/31/2024"
```

**After:**

```gherkin
Feature: Booking

  Scenario: Book on a date
    Given the booking date is "<booking_date>"
```

How it works

  1. Iterates over all scenarios and their steps.
  2. Searches each step text for common date and time format patterns using a regex.
  3. Reports a diagnostic suggesting a placeholder or parameterized value.

Configuration

This rule has no configurable parameters.

BI18N002: hardcoded-currency

Detects steps that contain hardcoded currency symbols like $, €, £, ¥, or currency codes like USD, EUR, GBP. Currency symbols are locale-specific and may not be appropriate for all regions.

Tags: i18n, currency, locale

Since: 2.4.0

Example

??? example "Before → After"

**Before:**

```gherkin
Feature: Payment

  Scenario: Pay amount
    Given the total is "\$99.99"
```

**After:**

```gherkin
Feature: Payment

  Scenario: Pay amount
    Given the total is "<amount>"
```

How it works

  1. Iterates over all scenarios and their steps.
  2. Searches each step text for currency symbols ($, €, £, ¥) and currency codes (USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, etc.) using a regex.
  3. Reports a diagnostic suggesting a placeholder or parameterized value.

Configuration

This rule has no configurable parameters.

BI18N003: non-ascii-step-text

Detects steps that contain non-ASCII characters (e.g., accented letters, CJK characters, emoji). While UTF-8 is widely supported, non-ASCII characters can cause encoding issues in some test runners, CI environments, or when sharing files across platforms.

Tags: i18n, encoding, ascii

Since: 2.4.0

Default severity: INFO

Example

??? example "Before → After"

**Before:**

```gherkin
Feature: Café menu

  Scenario: Order coffee
    Given the customer selects "café au lait"
```

**After:**

```gherkin
Feature: Cafe menu

  Scenario: Order coffee
    Given the customer selects "cafe au lait"
```

How it works

  1. Iterates over all scenarios and their steps.
  2. Searches each step text for characters outside the ASCII range (codepoints > 127) using a regex.
  3. Reports an INFO diagnostic suggesting to replace non-ASCII characters with ASCII equivalents or ensure UTF-8 encoding.

Configuration

This rule has no configurable parameters.