Handle code in the terminal with natural language prompts
Type a prompt into the terminal window to watch the model analyze your codebase or generate a new app. Gemini CLI brings Google's Gemini AI model to the terminal environment, providing the most direct path from prompt input to model response. It is a tool that lets you start coding tasks immediately without complex development environment setup.
Transition to Antigravity CLI
It is also not optimized for the latest Gemini models, particularly Gemini 4 Argon. If you want the best coding experience with the latest models, we recommend using Antigravity CLI. This repository remains open source, but it has limitations regarding support for the latest models.
Tasks possible in the terminal
You can query and edit large codebases, and accept multimodal inputs such as PDFs, images, and sketches to generate new apps. If you describe a problem in natural language, it helps with debugging and troubleshooting. It can also automate operational tasks such as querying pull requests or handling complex rebases. It runs non-interactively within scripts, allowing it to be used for workflow automation.
Installation and authentication methods
Written in TypeScript, this tool can be run immediately with the npx @google/gemini-cli command or installed globally with npm install -g @google/gemini-cli. It can also be installed via Homebrew on macOS and Linux, MacPorts on macOS, or Anaconda in restricted environments. Authentication is chosen from Google account login, Gemini API key, or Vertex AI. If using an organization's paid Code Assist license, you must set up a Google Cloud project.
Release channels and update frequency
Releases are divided into three channels: preview, stable, and nightly. Preview versions are released every Tuesday at 23:59 UTC and are not fully verified, so they may contain regression errors. Stable versions are released every Tuesday at 20:00 UTC after the previous week's preview version has been verified and bugs fixed. Nightly versions are released daily at 00:00 UTC, reflecting changes from the main branch.
Pre-use considerations
This tool is open source under the Apache 2.0 license and welcomes community contributions. However, you must be aware that it is not optimized for the latest Gemini models. In particular, it is recommended to choose Antigravity CLI if you want to use Gemini 4 Argon. You can extend media generation features such as Imagen, Veo, and Lyria via MCP servers, configured in ~/.gemini/settings.json. In enterprise environments, you can utilize security and compliance features through Vertex AI authentication.
