A free, single-page web app that translates between plain English and current Gen-Z slang — and back. Paste in what your kid texted you, hit Translate, get something you can actually reply with. Or write something normal and get the Gen-Z version to send. One button, auto-copies to clipboard.
Built in a few hours with Claude Code, OpenAI, Netlify.
- Vanilla JS + Tailwind CDN (no build step)
- Netlify Function (Node 20) — one endpoint:
POST /api/translate - Netlify Blobs — IP-based rate limiting, 20 req/IP/day
- OpenAI gpt-4o-mini — fast + cheap for slang translation
~$0.0001 per translation. 20 req/IP/day cap. Worst-case ~$3/day at 1,000 active users.
- Clone the repo
npm install- Connect the repo to a new Netlify site (Netlify UI → "Add new site" → "Import from GitHub")
- In Netlify site settings → Environment variables, add:
OPENAI_API_KEY— your OpenAI API key
- Netlify deploys automatically from
main. That's it.
No build command needed. The function bundler handles netlify/functions/translate.js automatically.
npm install -g netlify-cli
netlify dev
Set OPENAI_API_KEY in a .env file at the repo root (gitignored). Netlify Blobs works locally via the CLI dev server.
MIT