Discover Gemini-CLI: A Terminal Tool to Accelerate Your Workflows

TL;DR

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Quick guide to installing and using Gemini-CLI, Google’s new open-source AI terminal tool.

Introduction

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Just like Terminals are an essential part of Linux, AI tools are also making their way into the terminal. Recently, Google released an open-source project called Gemini-CLI: a command-line tool that allows you to interact with their AI models directly from your terminal.

This article covers how to install Gemini-CLI and some example commands you can try.

Gemini-CLI

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Gemini-CLI is an open-source terminal tool by Google that lets you interact with Gemini AI models directly from your terminal. With a free license, you get access to Gemini 2.5 Pro and its powerful 1 million token context window. Connect it with a Google AI Studio API key to unlock higher limits.

Prerequisites

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Make sure you have Node.js version 18 or higher installed.
For example, on Linux systems:

# Download and install nvm:
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.3/install.sh | bash

# in lieu of restarting the shell
\. "$HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh"

# Download and install Node.js:
nvm install 22

# Verify the Node.js version:
node -v # Should print "v22.17.0".
nvm current # Should print "v22.17.0".

# Verify npm version:
npm -v # Should print "10.9.2".

Install

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1. Install Gemini-CLI globally via NPM:

   # Install
   npm install -g @google/gemini-cli
   
   # Run Gemini-cli
   gemini
   

2. On first launch:

   • Select a theme using arrow keys.
   • Press Tab and Enter to confirm.

   

3. Log in using your Google account or by providing an API key from Google AI Studio.

4. Gemini-CLI is now ready to use.

   

Increase Usage Limit

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1. Generate your API key from Google AI Studio.

   

2. Set it as an environment variable in your terminal. Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your generated key.

   export GEMINI_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
   

CLI commands

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You can view the full list of available commands here.
Some basic ones include:

# Start a chat session   
/chat 

# Clear chat history
/clear

# Change the CLI theme
/theme

# Exit the CLI
/exit

# Display help information
/help

Example usage

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You can use Gemini-CLI directly in your terminal:

• At the prompt, simply type a question like what is Linux? and get an instant response.

• You can also use it to generate files, like a README.md for your dotfiles project.

  Here’s an example folder structure for mydotfiles:

  

  I used Gemini-CLI to help create a README.md for this dotfiles project:

  

  

  

  And this was the resulting README.md file created by Gemini:

  

Notes

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• With AI, your workflow can become faster and more efficient. However, always make sure you understand the fundamentals.
• If you encounter issues, check the troubleshooting guide.

Youtube Demo

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soon.

References

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• Official Google Blog
• Gemini-CLI on GitHub
• Google AI Studio