Gemini CLI

Interact w/ Google's Gemini CLI locally. Run queries, get responses, compare outputs.

Prerequisites

Gemini CLI must be installed & configured:

• Install: https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli

• Auth: Run gemini & sign in w/ Google account

• Verify: gemini --version

When to Use

• User asks to "run/ask/use gemini"

• Compare Claude vs Gemini responses

• Get second AI opinion

• Delegate task to Gemini

Usage

IMPORTANT: Use -p flag for non-interactive (headless) one-shot queries. Without -p , gemini opens interactive mode which hangs in automation.

One-shot query (MUST use -p for non-interactive)

gemini -p "Your prompt"

Specific model

gemini -p "prompt" -m gemini-3-pro

JSON output

gemini -p "prompt" -o json

YOLO mode (auto-approve tool use)

gemini -y -p "prompt"

File analysis

cat file.txt | gemini -p "Analyze this"

Models (Gemini 3+ only)

Model Use case

gemini-3-pro

Default, best all-round

gemini-3-flash

Fast, lightweight tasks

Omit -m to use the CLI default (latest stable).

CLI Options

Flag Desc

-p

Required for headless. Non-interactive prompt

-m

Model selection

-o

Output: text/json/stream-json

-y

Auto-approve all actions (YOLO)

-d

Debug mode

-s

Sandbox mode

-r

Resume session

-i

Execute prompt then continue interactive

Comparison Workflow

• Provide Claude's response first

• Run same query via gemini -p "prompt"

• Present both for comparison

Best Practices

• Always use -p for automation/one-shot queries

• Quote prompts w/ double quotes

• Use -o json for parsing

• Pipe files for context