Google previews Gemini API CLI (gemini-api), a zero-dependency Go binary that lets Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other coding agents generate media, transcribe and run managed agents from the shell
The Google AI Studio team released an experimental preview of the Gemini API CLI (command name gemini-api). It is a stateless, zero-dependency Go binary for macOS, Linux and Windows, open source under Apache 2.0. Any coding agent with shell access and a GEMINI_API_KEY can call text reasoning, image, video, music and speech generation, file and YouTube analysis, audio and video transcription, and managed agents such as Deep Research with one command. Media is written straight to disk and only the file path goes to stdout, so base64 payloads never land in the context window. Google labels it experimental and not a supported Google product.

Key Takeaways
- Default models (official README): gemini-3.8-flash for generate, analyze and transcribe; gemini-nano-banana-2.1 for image; gemini-omni-1.1-flash for video; lyria-3.5 for music; gemini-3.8-flash-tts for speech
- Install with a one-line curl script on macOS/Linux, a PowerShell script on Windows, or go install; the latest GitHub release is v0.4.3 (published 2026-10-19)
- Built for agents: --usage prints the command tree as KDL, --schema prints JSON Schema, --dry-run validates offline with credentials redacted, plus --output-format json/toon and inline --jq
- Exit codes separate 4 cases: 0 success, 1 runtime/API failure, 2 usage or validation error, 3 auth failure; --agent-mode emits structured JSON errors
- It also manages sandbox environments, server-side credentials, webhooks and cron triggers for managed agents; files uploaded via the Files API are kept for 48 hours
