i18n status: N/A Reason: developer-facing CLI validator whose findings quote and cite English-language specification prose from NIST verbatim; translating the wrapper text around untranslated cited rules would misattribute wording to the source.
oscal-validate's implemented surface is an offline CLI and library for people publishing compliance documents: finding messages, rule citations, and machine-readable JSON output. Per the portfolio Internationalization Standard (which requires stating status and reason rather than leaving the question silent), those operator-facing strings are English-only by design and are not translated.
- Covered by this N/A: CLI finding text, error messages, and developer documentation in this repository.
- Not affected: the tool's handling of multilingual data. OSCAL documents in any language validate identically; nothing about this declaration limits which documents the tool accepts.
- Also covered by this N/A: the output of the opt-in model-backed commands (ADR-0005). They quote NIST's English documentation verbatim and are asked to explain in English; a translated explanation around an untranslated quote would misattribute wording to the source in the same way.
A human-facing web surface, or a decision to localize finding messages for non-English-speaking compliance teams, makes i18n applicable. Message catalogs and an extraction pipeline would be required before such a surface ships, and finding output would need a design that keeps cited rule text verbatim while translating the surrounding message.
Declared: 2026-08-14. Reviewer: oscal-validate maintainer (Chelsea Kelly-Reif)