Google's Making a Move Gemini CLI Is Open-Source and Free (opens in new tab)

Recently, Google released Gemini CLI, an open-source command-line AI development tool.

Let's dive into what Gemini CLI is and how to install it. Stick around to the end!

What is Gemini CLI?

Simply put, Gemini CLI brings Gemini 1.5 Pro directly into your terminal. And here's the bigger surprise: free users get 1,000 requests per day and 60 requests per minute!

For developers, isn't this like hitting the jackpot?

Let's be real, other AI coding tools on the market are either heavily restricted or expensive. With this move, Google has just blown the competition out of the water.

According to the official documentation, Gemini CLI's power comes from its built-in tools, allowing you to:

- Ground prompts with Google Search to fetch web pages and provide the model with real-time, external context. - Extend Gemini CLI's capabilities through built-in support for the Model-in-Context Protocol (MCP) or bundled extensions. - Customize prompts and instructions to tailor Gemini to your specific needs and workflow. - Automate tasks and integrate with existing workflows by calling Gemini CLI non-interactively in scripts.

What's more, Gemini CLI can be used for a variety of tasks, including creating short videos with Veo and Imagen.

Most importantly, it boasts a 1 million token context window. This means developers can feed their entire project's codebase into it, allowing the AI to understand the complete code structure.

Gemini CLI is fully open-source under the Apache 2.0 license. This means developers can inspect the source code to see how it works, contribute code, and participate in improving the project (and maybe even brag about contributing to a Google project someday).

However, true to Google's usual playbook, they often launch new products with incredibly attractive free tiers that may be adjusted later. In other words, you'll want to jump on this offer while it's hot. The early bird gets the worm, after all.