Google Gemini 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