gemini-api-cli

Gemini API CLI Skill

This skill provides guidance on using the gemini-api command-line interface.

Overview

The gemini-api CLI allows you to:

• Run prompts against various Gemini models.
• Manage the full lifecycle of Gemini Agents.
• Generate and edit media (images, audio, TTS).

References

For detailed usage and examples, see the following references:

• Normal Model Calls: See references/model_calls.md for text generation, multi-turn conversations, and tool usage.
• Agents (Lifecycle): See references/agents.md for creating, testing, and managing agents.
• Agent Calls: See references/agent_calls.md for invoking antigravity-preview-05-2026 and Deep Research agents.
• Genmedia: See references/genmedia.md for image generation, image editing, and text-to-speech.

Basic Usage

The primary command is gemini-api run.

gemini-api run "Hello, who are you?"

Always ensure your GEMINI_API_KEY environment variable is set.

Global Flags & Features

The CLI supports several flags that are useful for debugging and automation:

Dry Run (--dry-run)

Prints the equivalent curl command and exits without making an API call. Useful for verifying what request would be sent.

gemini-api run "Hello" --dry-run

Help (--help)

Displays usage information and available flags for any command.

gemini-api --help
gemini-api run --help

JSON Output (--json)

Outputs raw SSE events as JSONL (one event per line), useful for machine parsing.

gemini-api run "Hello" --json

Verbose (--verbose / -v)

Outputs complete JSON step objects line-by-line as they finish. Recommended for programmatic parsing by calling agents.

gemini-api run "Hello" --verbose