plugin-timeline gantt axis and row-label default are hardcoded English strings, so a zh session reads "Week 1" / "Q3 2026" / "Items"

[yinlianghui]

Found while fixing #4513 (the four 'en-US' literals plus the bare toLocaleDateString() in packages/plugin-timeline/src/renderer.tsx). Out of that card's scope — #4513's ruling scopes it to the five Intl date sites, and these are a translation concern rather than a locale-resolver one, so they are recorded here rather than fixed on a rider.

What was measured

#4513's fix threads useDisplayLocale() through every Intl call, so on a zh session the gantt axis now reads 2026年8月 and item dates read 2026年8月11日. Three sibling strings in the same renderer never went through Intl at all, so they stay English on that same Chinese axis:

• renderer.tsx:84 — headers.push(Week ${week++}) for the week scale. A zh gantt axis reads Week 1, Week 2, ….
• renderer.tsx:92 — headers.push(Q${...} ${current.getFullYear()}) for the quarter scale, i.e. Q3 2026. (Q is arguably a recognized abbreviation in some locales; zh writes 第三季度 / 2026年第3季度.)
• renderer.tsx:364 — {schema.rowLabel || 'Items'} — the gantt row-label column header. Only the default is hardcoded; an author who sets rowLabel supplies their own string.

The year scale (String(current.getFullYear())) is genuinely locale-free and needs nothing.

Why it matters

Same user-visible surface as #4513 and the same session: a fully Chinese console renders a Chinese date axis with English bucket labels beside it. It is narrower than #4513 — only the week and quarter scales and the unset-rowLabel case are affected — but it is live, not dormant.

What this needs (and why it is not a rider on #4513)

The package already owns a translation channel: useTimelineTranslation / TIMELINE_DEFAULT_TRANSLATIONS in src/useTimelineTranslation.ts, the createSafeTranslation pattern that keeps the widget working with no I18nProvider mounted. Adding timeline.scale.week / timeline.scale.quarter / timeline.gantt.rowLabel there is the shape.

Two reasons it was not folded into #4513:

1. generateTimeScaleHeaders is a pure exported function, not a component. plugin-timeline hardcodes 'en-US' at four date sites, so timeline headers stay English on every non-English session #4513 threads a resolved locale string into it, which is a value; a translate fn is a different kind of dependency, and pushing one through the same seam is a design choice (thread t as well, vs. return structured buckets and let the component render them) rather than a mechanical extension.
2. It is vocabulary growth — three new translation keys plus their locale-pack entries — which under the startup-focus principle deserves its own triage rather than arriving inside a bug fix.

No Intl call is involved in any of the three, so nothing here is affected by #4513's change; the two are disjoint edits to the same file.

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[yinlianghui]

CLAIM — session_017Qqyix2QcnpUC9XeYVDzx3, branch claude/issue-4520-timeline-vocabulary. Dispatching a dev agent now.

PM triage + ruling (delegated decision authority; maintainer veto window open — record objections here): worth doing now. With #4513 landed, a zh session renders a correct Chinese date axis with English bucket labels beside it — the half-fixed state is more visibly wrong than the fully-unfixed one was, and three keys is not meaningful vocabulary growth under the startup-focus principle.

1. Measure the package's translation channel first. If plugin-timeline already has one (useTimelineTranslation or a defaults map), use it; if it has none, mirror the nearest sibling plugin's established pattern (plugin-calendar / plugin-kanban) — do not invent a new shape. Before writing zh/quarter spellings, search the repo for existing quarter/week key spellings and reuse them; per-pack conventions apply across all ten locale packs if the keys land in packages/i18n.
2. Authorized pin move, declared: plugin-timeline hardcodes 'en-US' at four date sites, so timeline headers stay English on every non-English session #4513's suite deliberately pinned Week 1 / Q3 2026 unchanged in a zh session to keep that card's scope honest. This card moves exactly those pins by design — rewrite those specific assertions to the translated expectation and name them in pins_moved. The year-only 2026 header is a bare number and stays. The date axis and item dates from plugin-timeline hardcodes 'en-US' at four date sites, so timeline headers stay English on every non-English session #4513 are must-not-change.
3. Red-first: zh session shows Week 1 / Q3 2026 / Items today. Pins: en output byte-identical everywhere; dateFormat:'iso' untouched; tenant-over-UI-language precedence unchanged.
4. Three keys: week bucket, quarter bucket, Items rowLabel default. Interpolation must go through the translate channel's own parameter mechanism, not string concatenation.

Sequencing: gate worktree creation on PR #4523 (armed, green) being visible in origin/main — its diff overlaps the same renderer function bodies. Zero intersection with in-flight #4302/#4306 (app-shell), #4490 (plugin-grid), #4040 (plugin-dashboard).

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Generated by Claude Code

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Generated by Claude Code