Repo No. 80google-gemini · Updated 9 November 2026 · In print

Skills Docs · No. 80

google-gemini

google-gemini / gemini-cli

An open-source AI agent that brings the power of Gemini directly into your terminal.

Start reading — 5 min

19 skills + 4 credited13,041 words

Inside this issue

1 — Install

$ npx skills add google-gemini/gemini-cli

Apache-2.0109k stars13,041 wordsUpdated 9 November 2026

2 — Skills

19 skills + 4 credited · 59 minutes

Agent TuiMain Agents: Do NOT use this skill directly. If you need to test the TUI, invoke the tui_tester subagent.5 min
Async PR ReviewTrigger this skill when the user wants to start an asynchronous PR review, run background checks on a PR, or…2 min
Behavioral EvalsGuidance for creating, running, fixing, and promoting behavioral evaluations.1 min
CIA specialized skill for Gemini CLI that provides high-performance, fail-fast monitoring of GitHub Actions…2 min
Code ReviewerUse this skill to review code.2 min

Skills Docs · Repo No. 80Whole repo as markdown

Provenance

Typeset in this issue’s own colours, resolved from a curated brand profile.

Front matter

From the README

(opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab)

[!IMPORTANT] Read before installing — Gemini CLI status & tool guide

Enterprise Code Assist only: Designed for Gemini Code Assist Standard / Enterprise licenses and Code Assist for GitHub on Google Cloud (your access remains unchanged).

No free tier or Google AI plans: Free individual access and Google AI Pro / Ultra (Google One) moved to Antigravity CLI (opens in a new tab) on June 18, 2026 (transition post (opens in a new tab)).

Not optimized for Gemini 4+: Not tuned for the Gemini 4 series (for example, Gemini 4 Argon (opens in a new tab)) or future releases in this or later generations.

Not for model benchmarks: Don’t use Gemini CLI to benchmark Gemini models—its harness isn’t tuned for Gemini 4+ and produces unrepresentative scores.

Which Google CLI do you need?

Tool Best for Links
Antigravity CLI (opens in a new tab) (agy) Interactive multi-agent coding terminal. Use for Gemini 4 Argon+, free / Google AI Pro & Ultra accounts, or Google Cloud. Download (opens in a new tab) · Migrate (opens in a new tab) · Argon post (opens in a new tab)
Gemini API CLI (opens in a new tab) (gemini-api) Stateless API CLI (not a coding harness). Gives agents (agy, Claude Code, Codex), scripts, and CI direct commands for Gemini models, media gen, file analysis, and managed agents. GitHub (opens in a new tab) · Releases (opens in a new tab) · API docs (opens in a new tab)
Gemini CLI (gemini, this repo) Organizations with Gemini Code Assist Standard / Enterprise or Code Assist for GitHub on Google Cloud (plus legacy paid API / Vertex keys). Docs (opens in a new tab)

Gemini CLI (gemini) is an open-source terminal agent maintained for enterprise Gemini Code Assist workflows on Google Cloud. Learn more in the Gemini CLI documentation (opens in a new tab).

📦 Installation

See Gemini CLI installation, execution, and releases (opens in a new tab) for recommended system specifications and a detailed installation guide.

Quick Install

Run instantly with npx

# Using npx (no installation required)
npx @google/gemini-cli

Install globally with npm

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli

Install globally with Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

brew install gemini-cli

Install globally with MacPorts (macOS)

sudo port install gemini-cli

Install with Anaconda (for restricted environments)

# Create and activate a new environment
conda create -y -n gemini_env -c conda-forge nodejs
conda activate gemini_env

# Install Gemini CLI globally via npm (inside the environment)
npm install -g @google/gemini-cli

Release Channels

See Releases (opens in a new tab) for more details.

New preview releases will be published each week at UTC 23:59 on Tuesdays. These releases will not have been fully vetted and may contain regressions or other outstanding issues. Please help us test and install with preview tag.

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli@preview

Stable

New stable releases will be published each week at UTC 20:00 on Tuesdays, this will be the full promotion of last week’s preview release + any bug fixes and validations. Use latest tag.

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli@latest

Nightly

New releases will be published each day at UTC 00:00. This will be all changes from the main branch as represented at time of release. It should be assumed there are pending validations and issues. Use nightly tag.

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli@nightly

📋 Key Features

Code Understanding & Generation

Query and edit large codebases
Generate new apps from PDFs, images, or sketches using multimodal capabilities
Debug issues and troubleshoot with natural language

Automation & Integration

Automate operational tasks like querying pull requests or handling complex rebases
Use MCP servers to connect new capabilities, including media generation with Imagen, Veo or Lyria (opens in a new tab)
Run non-interactively in scripts for workflow automation

🔐 Authentication Options

Choose the authentication method that best fits your needs:

When using a paid Code Assist License from your organization, remember to set the Google Cloud Project

# Set your Google Cloud Project
export GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT="YOUR_PROJECT_ID"
gemini

Option 2: Gemini API Key

✨ Best for: Developers who need specific model control or paid tier access

Benefits:

Model selection: Choose specific Gemini models
Usage-based billing: Upgrade for higher limits when needed

# Get your key from https://aistudio.google.com/apikey
export GEMINI_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
gemini

Option 3: Vertex AI

✨ Best for: Enterprise teams and production workloads

Benefits:

Enterprise features: Advanced security and compliance
Scalable: Higher rate limits with billing account
Integration: Works with existing Google Cloud infrastructure

# Get your key from Google Cloud Console
export GOOGLE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
export GOOGLE_GENAI_USE_VERTEXAI=true
gemini

For Google Workspace accounts and other authentication methods, see the authentication guide (opens in a new tab).

🚀 Getting Started

Basic Usage

Start in current directory

gemini

Include multiple directories

gemini --include-directories ../lib,../docs

Use specific model

gemini -m gemini-2.5-flash

Non-interactive mode for scripts

Get a simple text response:

gemini -p "Explain the architecture of this codebase"

For more advanced scripting, including how to parse JSON and handle errors, use the --output-format json flag to get structured output:

gemini -p "Explain the architecture of this codebase" --output-format json

For real-time event streaming (useful for monitoring long-running operations), use --output-format stream-json to get newline-delimited JSON events:

gemini -p "Run tests and deploy" --output-format stream-json

Quick Examples

Start a new project

cd new-project/
gemini
> Write me a Discord bot that answers questions using a FAQ.md file I will provide

Analyze existing code

git clone https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli
cd gemini-cli
gemini
> Give me a summary of all of the changes that went in yesterday

📚 Documentation

Troubleshooting & Support

Troubleshooting Guide (opens in a new tab) - Common issues and solutions.
FAQ (opens in a new tab) - Frequently asked questions.
Use /bug command to report issues directly from the CLI.

Using MCP Servers

Configure MCP servers in ~/.gemini/settings.json to extend Gemini CLI with custom tools:

> @github List my open pull requests
> @slack Send a summary of today's commits to #dev channel
> @database Run a query to find inactive users

See the MCP Server Integration guide (opens in a new tab) for setup instructions.

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Gemini CLI is fully open source (Apache 2.0), and we encourage the community to:

Report bugs and suggest features.
Improve documentation.
Submit code improvements.
Share your MCP servers and extensions.

See our Contributing Guide (opens in a new tab) for development setup, coding standards, and how to submit pull requests.

Check our Official Roadmap (opens in a new tab) for planned features and priorities.

📖 Resources

Free Course (opens in a new tab) - Learn the basics.
Official Roadmap (opens in a new tab) - See what’s coming next.
Changelog (opens in a new tab) - See recent notable updates.
NPM Package (opens in a new tab) - Package registry.
GitHub Issues (opens in a new tab) - Report bugs or request features.
Security Advisories (opens in a new tab) - Security updates.

Uninstall

See the Uninstall Guide (opens in a new tab) for removal instructions.

📄 Legal

License: Apache License 2.0 (opens in a new tab)
Terms of Service: Terms & Privacy (opens in a new tab)
Security: Security Policy (opens in a new tab)

Colophon

How this issue was made

Source

github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli, branch main, last pushed 9 November 2026.

Licence

Apache-2.0 — the text of every skill is reproduced unmodified, frontmatter included, under the upstream licence.

Discovery

23 skills found by walking the repository tree for SKILL.md, not by matching a directory convention. 4 distinct layouts observed: .gemini/skills/*/SKILL.md, packages/core/src/skills/builtin/*/SKILL.md, tools/caretaker-agent/cloudrun/triage-worker/.gemini/skills/*/SKILL.md, tools/gemini-cli-bot/.gemini/skills/*/SKILL.md.

Authorship

4 of 23 skills are installed into the repository rather than published from it. They are shelved in the closing “Credited skills” part and remain the work of their own authors. A skill counts as credited when its only copy lives under one agent’s dot directory; visible directories, per-agent mirror sets, and skills installable from this repository on skills.sh all count as published.

Issue colours

Resolved from a curated brand profile — hue 288°, chroma 0.190. Two accent tones are generated per issue and each is proven against its own ground before it ships: a single accent that passes AA on both light and dark paper is arithmetically impossible.

Heading repairs

1 repair applied to the front matter so the document has one h1 and no skipped levels:

Removed “Gemini CLI”, a leading h1 that duplicated the skill title.

Spec compliance

2 editorial notes across 2 of 23 skills. They are printed in the margin of each skill rather than as errors here.

Code Explorer — 1 note
Spec Generator — 1 note

Images

Images inside a skill come from the upstream repository. Where the author gave no alternative text we mark the image decorative rather than inventing a description — a plausible caption we made up is worse than none for the reader who depends on it.

Signal

Install counts come from skills.sh. They measure downloads, not quality, and an unranked repository is not an unread one.

Agent surfaces

The whole issue is available as one markdown document at /google-gemini/gemini-cli.md, and each skill at its own .md URL.

Publication

Set by Skills Docs from the source repository. Body text is Literata at the reader’s chosen size and measure; code is Geist Mono. Nothing on this page was written by us except this paragraph.

Contents

(opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab)

[!IMPORTANT] Read before installing — Gemini CLI status & tool guide

Enterprise Code Assist only: Designed for Gemini Code Assist Standard / Enterprise licenses and Code Assist for GitHub on Google Cloud (your access remains unchanged).

No free tier or Google AI plans: Free individual access and Google AI Pro / Ultra (Google One) moved to Antigravity CLI (opens in a new tab) on June 18, 2026 (transition post (opens in a new tab)).

Not optimized for Gemini 4+: Not tuned for the Gemini 4 series (for example, Gemini 4 Argon (opens in a new tab)) or future releases in this or later generations.

Not for model benchmarks: Don’t use Gemini CLI to benchmark Gemini models—its harness isn’t tuned for Gemini 4+ and produces unrepresentative scores.

Which Google CLI do you need?

Tool Best for Links
Antigravity CLI (opens in a new tab) (agy) Interactive multi-agent coding terminal. Use for Gemini 4 Argon+, free / Google AI Pro & Ultra accounts, or Google Cloud. Download (opens in a new tab) · Migrate (opens in a new tab) · Argon post (opens in a new tab)
Gemini API CLI (opens in a new tab) (gemini-api) Stateless API CLI (not a coding harness). Gives agents (agy, Claude Code, Codex), scripts, and CI direct commands for Gemini models, media gen, file analysis, and managed agents. GitHub (opens in a new tab) · Releases (opens in a new tab) · API docs (opens in a new tab)
Gemini CLI (gemini, this repo) Organizations with Gemini Code Assist Standard / Enterprise or Code Assist for GitHub on Google Cloud (plus legacy paid API / Vertex keys). Docs (opens in a new tab)

Gemini CLI (gemini) is an open-source terminal agent maintained for enterprise Gemini Code Assist workflows on Google Cloud. Learn more in the Gemini CLI documentation (opens in a new tab).

📦 Installation

See Gemini CLI installation, execution, and releases (opens in a new tab) for recommended system specifications and a detailed installation guide.

Quick Install

Run instantly with npx

# Using npx (no installation required)
npx @google/gemini-cli

Install globally with npm

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli

Install globally with Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

brew install gemini-cli

Install globally with MacPorts (macOS)

sudo port install gemini-cli

Install with Anaconda (for restricted environments)

# Create and activate a new environment
conda create -y -n gemini_env -c conda-forge nodejs
conda activate gemini_env

# Install Gemini CLI globally via npm (inside the environment)
npm install -g @google/gemini-cli

Release Channels

See Releases (opens in a new tab) for more details.

Preview

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli@preview

Stable

New stable releases will be published each week at UTC 20:00 on Tuesdays, this will be the full promotion of last week’s preview release + any bug fixes and validations. Use latest tag.

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli@latest

Nightly

New releases will be published each day at UTC 00:00. This will be all changes from the main branch as represented at time of release. It should be assumed there are pending validations and issues. Use nightly tag.

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli@nightly

📋 Key Features

Code Understanding & Generation

Query and edit large codebases
Generate new apps from PDFs, images, or sketches using multimodal capabilities
Debug issues and troubleshoot with natural language

Automation & Integration

Automate operational tasks like querying pull requests or handling complex rebases
Use MCP servers to connect new capabilities, including media generation with Imagen, Veo or Lyria (opens in a new tab)
Run non-interactively in scripts for workflow automation

🔐 Authentication Options

Choose the authentication method that best fits your needs:

When using a paid Code Assist License from your organization, remember to set the Google Cloud Project

# Set your Google Cloud Project
export GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT="YOUR_PROJECT_ID"
gemini

Option 2: Gemini API Key

✨ Best for: Developers who need specific model control or paid tier access

Benefits:

Model selection: Choose specific Gemini models
Usage-based billing: Upgrade for higher limits when needed

# Get your key from https://aistudio.google.com/apikey
export GEMINI_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
gemini

Option 3: Vertex AI

✨ Best for: Enterprise teams and production workloads

Benefits:

Enterprise features: Advanced security and compliance
Scalable: Higher rate limits with billing account
Integration: Works with existing Google Cloud infrastructure

# Get your key from Google Cloud Console
export GOOGLE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
export GOOGLE_GENAI_USE_VERTEXAI=true
gemini

For Google Workspace accounts and other authentication methods, see the authentication guide (opens in a new tab).

🚀 Getting Started

Basic Usage

Start in current directory

gemini

Include multiple directories

gemini --include-directories ../lib,../docs

Use specific model

gemini -m gemini-2.5-flash

Non-interactive mode for scripts

Get a simple text response:

gemini -p "Explain the architecture of this codebase"

For more advanced scripting, including how to parse JSON and handle errors, use the --output-format json flag to get structured output:

gemini -p "Explain the architecture of this codebase" --output-format json

For real-time event streaming (useful for monitoring long-running operations), use --output-format stream-json to get newline-delimited JSON events:

gemini -p "Run tests and deploy" --output-format stream-json

Quick Examples

Start a new project

cd new-project/
gemini
> Write me a Discord bot that answers questions using a FAQ.md file I will provide

Analyze existing code

git clone https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli
cd gemini-cli
gemini
> Give me a summary of all of the changes that went in yesterday

📚 Documentation

Getting Started

Quickstart Guide (opens in a new tab) - Get up and running quickly.
Authentication Setup (opens in a new tab) - Detailed auth configuration.
Configuration Guide (opens in a new tab) - Settings and customization.
Keyboard Shortcuts (opens in a new tab) - Productivity tips.

Core Features

Commands Reference (opens in a new tab) - All slash commands (/help, /chat, etc).
Custom Commands (opens in a new tab) - Create your own reusable commands.
Context Files (GEMINI.md) (opens in a new tab) - Provide persistent context to Gemini CLI.
Checkpointing (opens in a new tab) - Save and resume conversations.
Token Caching (opens in a new tab) - Optimize token usage.

Tools & Extensions

Built-in Tools Overview (opens in a new tab)
MCP Server Integration (opens in a new tab) - Extend with custom tools.
Custom Extensions (opens in a new tab) - Build and share your own commands.

Advanced Topics

Headless Mode (Scripting) (opens in a new tab) - Use Gemini CLI in automated workflows.
IDE Integration (opens in a new tab) - VS Code companion.
Sandboxing & Security (opens in a new tab) - Safe execution environments.
Trusted Folders (opens in a new tab) - Control execution policies by folder.
Enterprise Guide (opens in a new tab) - Deploy and manage in a corporate environment.
Telemetry & Monitoring (opens in a new tab) - Usage tracking.
Tools reference (opens in a new tab) - Built-in tools overview.
Local development (opens in a new tab) - Local development tooling.

Troubleshooting & Support

Troubleshooting Guide (opens in a new tab) - Common issues and solutions.
FAQ (opens in a new tab) - Frequently asked questions.
Use /bug command to report issues directly from the CLI.

Using MCP Servers

Configure MCP servers in ~/.gemini/settings.json to extend Gemini CLI with custom tools:

> @github List my open pull requests
> @slack Send a summary of today's commits to #dev channel
> @database Run a query to find inactive users

See the MCP Server Integration guide (opens in a new tab) for setup instructions.

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Gemini CLI is fully open source (Apache 2.0), and we encourage the community to:

Report bugs and suggest features.
Improve documentation.
Submit code improvements.
Share your MCP servers and extensions.

See our Contributing Guide (opens in a new tab) for development setup, coding standards, and how to submit pull requests.

Check our Official Roadmap (opens in a new tab) for planned features and priorities.

📖 Resources

Free Course (opens in a new tab) - Learn the basics.
Official Roadmap (opens in a new tab) - See what’s coming next.
Changelog (opens in a new tab) - See recent notable updates.
NPM Package (opens in a new tab) - Package registry.
GitHub Issues (opens in a new tab) - Report bugs or request features.
Security Advisories (opens in a new tab) - Security updates.

Uninstall

See the Uninstall Guide (opens in a new tab) for removal instructions.

📄 Legal

License: Apache License 2.0 (opens in a new tab)
Terms of Service: Terms & Privacy (opens in a new tab)
Security: Security Policy (opens in a new tab)

Tool	Best for	Links
Antigravity CLI (opens in a new tab) (`agy`)	Interactive multi-agent coding terminal. Use for Gemini 4 Argon+, free / Google AI Pro & Ultra accounts, or Google Cloud.	Download (opens in a new tab) · Migrate (opens in a new tab) · Argon post (opens in a new tab)
Gemini API CLI (opens in a new tab) (`gemini-api`)	Stateless API CLI (not a coding harness). Gives agents (`agy`, Claude Code, Codex), scripts, and CI direct commands for Gemini models, media gen, file analysis, and managed agents.	GitHub (opens in a new tab) · Releases (opens in a new tab) · API docs (opens in a new tab)
Gemini CLI (`gemini`, this repo)	Organizations with Gemini Code Assist Standard / Enterprise or Code Assist for GitHub on Google Cloud (plus legacy paid API / Vertex keys).	Docs (opens in a new tab)