Recipe: Improve Your Writing

This recipe shows how to use yaku’s polish mode to write clearer, more natural text — especially in languages you’re still learning.

Polish a Spanish email draft

echo "Quiero informarte que el deployment será delay porque del issue que encontramos en testing." | \
  yaku --mode polish --to es

Output:

Quiero informarte que el despliegue se retrasará debido al problema que encontramos en las pruebas.

Polish with tone control

Use --context to set the formality level:

# Formal email to a Spanish-speaking client
echo "Encontramos un bug y lo vamos a fixear pronto" | \
  yaku --mode polish --to es --context "formal email to enterprise client"
# Hemos identificado un problema y estamos trabajando en una solución. Le informaremos a la brevedad.

# Casual Slack message in French
echo "le CI est cassé encore, quelqu'un peut regarder?" | \
  yaku --mode polish --to fr --context "casual Slack message"
# Le CI est encore cassé — quelqu'un peut jeter un œil ?

Polish a PR description

If you’re contributing to a project in another language:

cat <<'EOF' | yaku --mode polish --to es --context "GitHub pull request description"
Este PR fix el issue donde el input del usuario no es validate antes de send al API.
También add test para la nueva lógica de validación.
EOF

Output:

Este PR corrige el problema donde la entrada del usuario no se valida antes de enviarla a la API.
También agrega pruebas para la nueva lógica de validación.

Polish a file

yaku --mode polish --to fr -f draft-blog-post.md -o polished-blog-post.md

For Markdown files, yaku preserves the structure (headings, code blocks, links) while polishing the prose.

Polish English text

Polish mode works for English too — useful for important communications:

echo "I want to inform you that the deployment will be delay because of the issue we found in testing." | \
  yaku --mode polish --to en

Output:

I'd like to inform you that the deployment will be delayed due to an issue we found during testing.

Workflow: write in English, then translate

If you need to write in a language you’re learning, write in English first and let yaku translate with context:

echo "We need to fix this bug in the next sprint, otherwise it will affect the user experience" | \
  yaku --to es --context "team status update"

The --context flag adjusts tone and formality in a single step — no need to translate and then polish separately.

Tips

• Don’t over-polish. If the original text is already clear, yaku returns it with minimal changes.
• Use --context to match the audience. A Slack message and a client email need different levels of formality.
• Review the output. Polish mode makes the text sound more natural, but verify it still says what you intended.