Tolk

Tolk Starter for Payload CMS 3 and Next.js 16

Multilingual websites on Payload, translated in your brand’s voice.

A starter kit for developers and agencies who build company sites in several languages. One click translates a page with your own Anthropic key, guided by your glossary and style guide, and every language keeps its layout in sync, block by block.

Try the live demo Join the waitlist

Log in to the demo with one click. Anyone may change it, and it resets every night.

The demo site: Varde, a fictional Scandinavian maker of speakers, its front page in English.
The demo is Varde, a fictional speaker maker, in English, Danish and German, built with the kit as it ships.

AI translation

Translate a page into every language at once.

Press ✨ Translate on a page and choose the languages. Your own server sends the text to Anthropic with your key, and each language gets a draft to read before it goes live.

  • Product names stay names, and the glossary decides how “light ring” is said in Danish and German.
  • A second reading checks each draft against your style guide and fixes what reads translated.
  • Word, PowerPoint, Excel and InDesign files come back translated with their layout intact.
Recorded in the demo, with the real AI.

It learns

Your editors’ changes become the translator’s rules.

When a person changes the AI’s wording and publishes, translation memory keeps the better version and notes the change. Distill reads the changes and proposes glossary terms, notes and examples for someone to approve.

  • The copy desk shows what the review changed in a draft, and why, with Keep and Revert.
  • Approved wording is reused, so the same sentence is never paid for twice.
  • An evaluation measures the translator against your own reference translations.
The Quality panel in Translation status: corrections waiting for Distill, and its proposals waiting for approval, such as the glossary term handle → hank. The copy desk on a Danish page: what the review changed in the AI’s draft, each with a note and Keep or Revert.

Languages in sync

Change the English, and see which languages are behind.

Each language owns its layout, and every block stays linked to the same block in English. Translation status lists what is missing or out of date in every language, and one click catches a page up.

  • Detach a block, and a market keeps its own version.
  • A block deleted in one language stays deleted there.
  • Linking, syncing and the status work without an AI key.
Recorded in the demo.

The kit

A whole company site, not a boilerplate.

Pages built from 48 sections, a product catalog, news, jobs, dealers on a map and case studies, in every language. The demo is the kit with content in it: what you see there is what your client gets.

A product page in the demo: Column, with its key figures and a bar of sections.
Products with specifications, prices and colours
A product family page in the demo: Speakers, opening with a large picture.
Families, comparison and downloads
The demo’s front page in German, translated by the kit’s AI.
The front page in German, from one click
  • News topics, authors, RSS and a newsletter
  • Catalog families, specifications, prices and certifications
  • Dealers on a map, with OpenStreetMap by default
  • Case studies results and quotes
  • Jobs open positions per department

For developers

Code you own, on the stack you know.

The full source of a Payload 3 and Next.js 16 site, typed end to end, tested, and documented for the developer and the editor. No service of ours sits between your site and its visitors: nothing to subscribe to, and no lock-in.

  • Your own Anthropic key. Without one, the AI controls are hidden and the rest works.
  • MongoDB or PostgreSQL, picked by the database address.
  • Docker, a VPS with Coolify, Railway, or Vercel with Blob storage.
  • Unit, integration and end-to-end tests, and a weekly pull request with the kit’s updates.

.env

# MongoDB or PostgreSQL
DATABASE_URL=postgres://…
PAYLOAD_SECRET=…
NEXT_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=https://www.example.com

# Optional: AI translation, on your key
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=…

# Optional: uploads on Vercel Blob
BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN=…
  • Payload CMS 3
  • Next.js 16
  • React 19
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS 4

Licences

What you get

One project

One website for you or one client, with its development, staging and production. Every language and domain of that site is included.

Agency

Any number of projects, for yourself and your clients. Your developers and contractors may all work with it.

Tolk isn’t for sale yet. Prices are announced at launch, and the waitlist gets a launch discount.

Join the waitlist

An email when Tolk goes on sale, with a launch discount for the waitlist. Very occasional news before that. Unsubscribe at any time.

Buttondown will email you a link to confirm. How your address is handled.

Questions

Do I need an Anthropic API key?

Only for the AI features. Without a key, the AI controls are hidden and everything else works, block sync included. With a key, your own server calls Anthropic directly and you pay Anthropic for what you translate. Nothing goes through Tolk.

Which languages does it support?

The ones you add. The language list is one file in the code: add an entry, and the addresses, hreflang, language switcher and admin follow.

Which database and hosting?

MongoDB 7 or later, or PostgreSQL: the address you give picks one. It runs anywhere that runs a Dockerfile or Node.js 22, such as a VPS, Coolify or Railway, and on Vercel with uploads on Vercel Blob. Building needs about 4 GB of memory.

Is the AI’s text in the demo real?

Yes. The demo’s German pages, the drafts in translation memory and the review’s notes are what the kit’s own translator wrote, recorded once and replayed every night. Nothing is made up.

Is it open source?

No. You get all the source code to change as you like, under a licence: one project, or unlimited projects for agencies.

Who makes it?

Lasse Nørby, a developer in Denmark.