tomevault-io Gemini CLI Runtime Contract
This skill defines how polycli:polycli-provider-agent (the subagent) interacts with the
polycli companion script for Gemini. Only invoked from within polycli:polycli-provider-agent.
Primary helper
node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/polycli-companion.bundle.mjs" rescue --provider gemini "<prompt>" --json
Commands available to the agent
The provider-agent forwards whatever subcommand the caller supplied. Use rescue for multi-step agent work and ask for one-shot questions; the rest are slash-command-driven user flows.
| Command | Used by agent? | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
rescue |
Yes | Multi-step agent task (600s base, 1200s for deep-reasoning models — see Latency expectations) |
ask |
Yes | One-shot question (120s base, 240s for deep-reasoning models — see Latency expectations) |
setup |
No | User checks installation |
health |
No | User runs end-to-end probe |
review |
No | User triggers code review |
adversarial-review |
No | User triggers adversarial review |
status |
No | User checks job status |
result |
No | User fetches completed output |
cancel |
No | User cancels background job |
timing |
No | User inspects timing history |
Resumable thread state is exposed via the --resume-last flag, not a separate subcommand.
Latency expectations
Only deep-reasoning Gemini variants (Pro / Thinking series) routinely spend 30s–several minutes silently reasoning before emitting visible text. Flash and other non-reasoning variants typically stream within seconds. This is upstream behavior, not a polycli stall.
To absorb the reasoning latency without inflating other models' budgets, the companion applies a model-scoped multiplier:
PROVIDER_TIMEOUT_MULTIPLIERS = {
gemini: { "gemini-3.1-pro-preview": 2 },
opencode: { "kimi-for-coding/k2p6": 2 }, // also a code-reasoning model
}
(The opencode entry was added 2026-05-02 after a HumanEval/130 Tribonacci probe hit the 120s ask ceiling; the same pattern can be extended to any other reasoning model id.)
Resolution rules (per resolveTimeoutMs in polycli-companion.mjs):
--model gemini-3.1-pro-preview→ ×2 budget (the explicit reasoning case)- No
--model, cached upstream-default model isgemini-3.1-pro-preview→ ×2 budget (the common case today) --model <some-flash-or-other>→ ×1 (caller explicitly chose a non-reasoning model)- Unknown / cache empty / non-gemini provider → ×1
Effective ceilings when the multiplier applies:
| kind | base | gemini reasoning |
|---|---|---|
ask |
120s | 240s |
rescue |
600s | 1200s |
review |
300s | 600s |
adversarial-review |
300s | 600s |
health keeps the universal 60s budget regardless of model — gemini's health prompt is sentinel-only and does not exercise reasoning.
If you cannot estimate how long a gemini prompt will take (e.g. open-ended diagnosis on a large diff), prefer --background and poll with /polycli:status / /polycli:result instead of relying on the foreground timeout. The background worker reuses the same execution.timeout (so gemini still gets the model-resolved budget), but the calling shell is freed immediately and the user can decide how long to wait.
When upstream releases a new reasoning-capable Gemini model id, add it to PROVIDER_TIMEOUT_MULTIPLIERS.gemini. Do not blanket-multiply the whole provider — that would over-budget Flash users.
Routing controls
These are CLI flags, not prompt text:
--background— run async, return job ID immediately--write— allow Gemini to modify files (maps to--approval-mode auto_edit)--resume-last— continue previous Gemini thread--fresh— start new thread (ignore previous)--model <model>— override the default model--effort <low|medium|high>— reasoning effort level--prompt-file <path>— read prompt from file instead of positional args--json— always use this for machine-readable output
Safety rules
- Preserve prompt text as-is. Only reshape via
gemini-promptingskill. - Never inspect the repo from the agent. Claude does that.
- Return stdout exactly. No independent analysis.
- Return nothing if invocation fails (let Claude handle the error).
Source: bbingz/polycli — distributed by TomeVault.