[HN Gopher] Now open for building: Introducing Gemini CLI extens...
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Now open for building: Introducing Gemini CLI extensions
Author : meetpateltech
Score : 103 points
Date : 2025-10-08 14:13 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.google)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.google)
| simonw wrote:
| It looks like the key idea here is that a GitHub repo can have a
| gemini-extension.json file which specifies some MCP servers and a
| GEMINI.md file, then you can tell Gemini CLI to add that repo and
| it will fetch and configure those details.
|
| Here's a commit I found adding one of these for the Google Maps
| platform: https://github.com/googlemaps/platform-
| ai/commit/95c4efdb43c...
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| "The extensions listed here are sourced from public repositories
| and created by third-party developers. Google does not vet,
| endorse, or guarantee the functionality or security of these
| extensions. Please carefully inspect any extension and its source
| code before installing to understand the permissions it requires
| and the actions it may perform. "
|
| Extensions are always a trust challenge, but the high value of AI
| systems means that I expect we'll see a very high volume of
| attacks in the near future.
| derekcheng08 wrote:
| Cool, but at the same time, it feels overwhelming: so many
| different CLI or IDE tools, so many extension points. It will be
| fascinating to see how this all shakes out.
| verdverm wrote:
| not in gemini-cli's flavor, it's one of the worst tools I've
| used
| derekcheng08 wrote:
| Is it model quality or the CLI itself?
| verdverm wrote:
| I like the Gemini / Gemma family of models
|
| It's more the agentic stuff, and things specific to the
| gemini-cli, which is behind the alternatives in features
| and capabilities. It was also making an insane number of
| requests (>1000 in a day, which is about the same as my
| Copilot usage for a month), but I'm sure they are doing
| their accounting differently. Google has tried to do AI
| accounting differently, but has acquiesced to counting
| tokens instead of chars, fingers crossed they do here to
| instead of being a snowflake that takes more effort to
| align in comparisons
|
| I can't stand the cutesiness they've embedded into it
| either. I don't want that in a work tool
|
| My general sense is that ai-clis will lose out to IDE
| integrations. I'd prefer a single tool and experience over
| having to context switch. Putting my AI partner in the same
| tool and env I use is better than having it separate with
| hacks to make it seem like it can be in there too, only
| sorta not quite
| verdverm wrote:
| I'd add my general impression is that all the good
| designers that were at Google are gone, looking across
| their portfolio
|
| Take even the Gemini Web App... what set Google apart in
| the early days? Search was just an input box, no clutter
| or calls to action. They have recently decided to break
| from this (they did have it clean beforehand) and try to
| get me to use image generation and other calls to action.
| Please get rid of the slop before I can even make my own
| slop!
|
| and don't egg me on about Google Cloud... it's speed now
| feels like Jira, which to many people's surprise has
| changed course and is quite fast now
| asdev wrote:
| so just a way to be able to pull in more context/info about MCP
| servers in the form of .MD files?
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Is it not strange that they didn't start with a Google Workspace
| extension? Drive, Docs, Sheets, Chat?
| mattlondon wrote:
| I think those have been around for ages already? At least via
| the app.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Well, this is about the CLI. I do mean the CLI.
| iamleppert wrote:
| The last time I was locked out of Claude Code I gave gemini cli a
| try. 10 minutes and lots of weird scrolling and screen flashing
| later, and it kept trying to add and remove the same function
| from the same file over and over, in a loop, until it exhausted
| its credits and demanded I upgrade.
| sega_sai wrote:
| My recent experience of Gemini CLI in comparison to Claude code
| is very negative. For a complex task of trying to migrate some
| code base from CPU-only to GPU computations Claude was really
| helpful, and allowed me to conduct a range of experiments and
| converge towards sensible architecture. In the same time I simply
| was not able to get anything useful out of Gemini. Some code was
| written, but it was not tested, was failing or timing out and
| after repeated prodding Gemini got into loops or internal errors.
| chewz wrote:
| Watching Gemini CLI repo daily is great insight into how Google
| works. Tons of commits, three release channels, great ambitions
| and very little to show. These guys are running in all
| directions and getting nowhere.
| rs186 wrote:
| Someone please explain to me the value of being able to interact
| with Figma via Gemini CLI?
|
| Why would I want to do that?
| drusepth wrote:
| Presumably the reverse would be more valuable: design something
| in Figma, then have Gemini CLI read from Figma and use that as
| a reference while writing the code.
|
| I don't know if this is how the Figma integration works, but
| right now I'm just manually screenshotting my designs and
| passing them into Claude CLI as references for what I want, so
| this seems potentially more streamlined.
| mawadev wrote:
| I don't understand why this question is being downvoted. Feels
| like there aren't many use cases yet
| xnx wrote:
| If there's value in a human using Figma, there's value in being
| able to give a "bot" instructions to do whatever a person
| might. e.g. "Gemini, update all the Figma layouts with this new
| text."
| saberience wrote:
| Any Claude Code users who have tried Gemini CLI? Just curious as
| to how it compares.
|
| I feel no desire to switch or learn a new thing but I'm wondering
| if people feel like it's on par with CC or Codex or behind.
| axpy906 wrote:
| My experience was while it had longer context it didn't do as
| well on coding tasks. I use CC after being on Cursor.
| saberience wrote:
| Same with me, I had signed up for a year plan on Cursor, used
| it for like... a week, then tried CC and it was so much
| better I signed up for the max plan and then never looked
| back.
| tomwojcik wrote:
| Pricing
|
| Gemini is about 10x cheaper per token. But for some reason it's
| using 8 times more input tokens than CC. They also have this
| thing called cached tokens, which is much cheaper than not
| cached tokens. It's a hot cache of your context on Google side,
| cached automatically. So at the end of the day you don't know
| how much you'll pay.
|
| Models
|
| Google is good for very complex topics and when the
| conversation is short. But both models are great. I prefer
| Claude and Sonnet 4.5 is great all around
|
| CLI tools
|
| Gemini cli is at it's very early days. Doesn't support hooks or
| subagents. Often runs into loops it can't break out from,
| essentially gets stuck but you still pay for the tokens.
|
| Claude is just great. Allows you to write complex workflows
| they way they are supposed to be written. Handles hooks and
| subagents. MD file can reference another MD file, so you can
| DRY your files.
|
| Nested plan mode works weird, sometimes the agent gets stuck if
| it asks for plan approval and thinks it's executing it, but
| displays nothing... So plan mode is not fully supported in
| subagents.
|
| A nice thing is that .Claude directory is automatically
| understood by codex or cursor, you should be able to run your
| Claude command using openai models via codex or maybe even
| other providers via Cursor.
|
| Summary
|
| Overall Claude is the best all around, but the tokens are crazy
| expensive and the subscription model is a joke. You don't know
| how many tokens you can use when you're subscribed, but it's
| 'something', and last week they changed the limits, it's
| suddenly half of 'something'...
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| MCP servers already have the features they're touting (preloaded
| prompts, custom commands etc.) so these features are redundant
| for most people.
|
| But nice of them to try wrestling a file into your repo named
| "gemini something something".. can't knock them for having a go.
| flakiness wrote:
| AFAIK this is a way to package MCP with some gemini-cli
| specific metadata.
| james2doyle wrote:
| Check this out: https://github.com/gemini-cli-extensions/security
|
| This one seems to showcase a bunch of the "extension" features,
| including a custom MCP for dealing with file line numbers.
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