Amp vs Gemini CLI

Overview

Amp is a coding agent and development environment built for frontier models. Instead of keeping one chat in one editor, Amp gives every agent its own orb — an isolated environment that keeps working after you close your laptop. You can start a task, walk away, and check on it from the web or your phone while it continues in the background.

The product is aimed at developers who run several agents at once and want to stop juggling worktrees, terminals and browser tabs. Amp describes the shift as "juggle less, ship more": you direct a team of agents, share threads with teammates, and pick work back up from any device.

What Amp provides

• Orbs — always-on environments for agents. Each orb can run commands, edit code and keep state, and agents inside them continue after your local machine disconnects.
• Remote control — run amp --no-tui on servers, CI runners or any shell, then watch and steer those agents from the web UI or your phone.
• Threads and spaces — long-running conversations grouped into spaces so multiple agents and teammates can work on the same project without stepping on each other.
• Automations — agents can schedule themselves to wake up, check production metrics, compare canary results and report back without a human prompt.
• Production access with OIDC — orbs can be granted (and revoked) access to production systems such as Google Cloud, so an agent can read logs or verify a rollout.
• Team features — service accounts for threads that belong to the team rather than one person, plus sharing so colleagues can follow or take over work.
• Git hosting integrations — connect github.com, gitlab.com or a self-hosted GitLab instance; Amp can also host a repository for a new project and clone it with amp clone.
• Portals — open what an agent built on a remote runner directly from your browser, even when the code is not on your machine.
• Boxes — always-on computers for the things you build with Amp.

How people use it

Typical workflows include handing off a bug report and letting the agent reproduce, patch and test it; running performance rollouts where an agent watches dashboards and confirms a fleet-wide win; reviewing a diff and asking follow-up questions in the same thread; and letting an agent fix its own tooling or documentation when it hits a bad error message.

Amp is model-agnostic in practice — the agent can be pointed at different frontier models — and it exposes the same threads across the desktop app, CLI, web and mobile, so a task can start on one surface and finish on another.

Getting started

1. Create an account at ampcode.com and install the CLI or desktop app.
2. Run amp in a project directory, or use amp --no-tui on a remote machine.
3. Describe the task; the agent plans, edits files, runs commands and reports back.
4. Use the web or mobile view to steer long-running orbs, or open a portal to preview what was built.
5. For team work, move persistent threads into a space and use service accounts where the work should outlive an individual.

Pricing

Amp offers a free tier with limited daily usage plus paid credit plans for heavier agent use; team and enterprise options add shared spaces, service accounts and centralized billing. Check ampcode.com for current limits.

Links

• Website: ampcode.com
• Docs: ampcode.com/docs
• CLI remote control: ampcode.com/docs/cli/remote-control
• Changelog: ampcode.com/chronicle

Gemini CLI

[!IMPORTANT]
Read before installing — Gemini CLI status & tool guide

• Enterprise Code Assist only: Designed for Gemini Code Assist Standard / Enterprise licenses and Code Assist for GitHub on Google Cloud (your access remains unchanged).
• No free tier or Google AI plans: Free individual access and Google AI Pro / Ultra (Google One) moved to Antigravity CLI on June 18, 2026 (transition post).
• Not optimized for Gemini 4+: Not tuned for the Gemini 4 series (for example, Gemini 4 Argon) or future releases in this or later generations.
• Not for model benchmarks: Don't use Gemini CLI to benchmark Gemini models—its harness isn't tuned for Gemini 4+ and produces unrepresentative scores.

Which Google CLI do you need?

Tool	Best for	Links
Antigravity CLI (agy)	Interactive multi-agent coding terminal. Use for Gemini 4 Argon+, free / Google AI Pro & Ultra accounts, or Google Cloud.	Download · Migrate · Argon post
Gemini API CLI (gemini-api)	Stateless API CLI (not a coding harness). Gives agents (agy, Claude Code, Codex), scripts, and CI direct commands for Gemini models, media gen, file analysis, and managed agents.	GitHub · Releases · API docs
Gemini CLI (gemini, this repo)	Organizations with Gemini Code Assist Standard / Enterprise or Code Assist for GitHub on Google Cloud (plus legacy paid API / Vertex keys).	Docs

Gemini CLI (gemini) is an open-source terminal agent maintained for enterprise
Gemini Code Assist workflows on Google Cloud. Learn more in the
Gemini CLI documentation.

📦 Installation

See
Gemini CLI installation, execution, and releases
for recommended system specifications and a detailed installation guide.

Quick Install

Run instantly with npx

## Using npx (no installation required)
npx @google/gemini-cli

Install globally with npm

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli

Install globally with Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

brew install gemini-cli

Install globally with MacPorts (macOS)

sudo port install gemini-cli

Install with Anaconda (for restricted environments)

## Create and activate a new environment
conda create -y -n gemini_env -c conda-forge nodejs
conda activate gemini_env

## Install Gemini CLI globally via npm (inside the environment)
npm install -g @google/gemini-cli

Release Channels

See Releases for more details.

Preview

New preview releases will be published each week at UTC 23:59 on Tuesdays. These
releases will not have been fully vetted and may contain regressions or other
outstanding issues. Please help us test and install with preview tag.

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli@preview

Stable

• New stable releases will be published each week at UTC 20:00 on Tuesdays, this
  will be the full promotion of last week's preview release + any bug fixes
  and validations. Use latest tag.

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli@latest

Nightly

• New releases will be published each day at UTC 00:00. This will be all changes
  from the main branch as represented at time of release. It should be assumed
  there are pending validations and issues. Use nightly tag.

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli@nightly

📋 Key Features

Code Understanding & Generation

• Query and edit large codebases
• Generate new apps from PDFs, images, or sketches using multimodal capabilities
• Debug issues and troubleshoot with natural language

Automation & Integration

• Automate operational tasks like querying pull requests or handling complex
  rebases
• Use MCP servers to connect new capabilities, including
  media generation with Imagen, Veo or Lyria
• Run non-interactively in scripts for workflow automation

🔐 Authentication Options

Choose the authentication method that best fits your needs:

Option 1: Sign in with Google (OAuth login using your Google Account)

When using a paid Code Assist License from your organization, remember to set the Google Cloud Project

## Set your Google Cloud Project
export GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT="YOUR_PROJECT_ID"
gemini

Option 2: Gemini API Key

✨ Best for: Developers who need specific model control or paid tier access

Benefits:

• Model selection: Choose specific Gemini models
• Usage-based billing: Upgrade for higher limits when needed

## Get your key from https://aistudio.google.com/apikey
export GEMINI_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
gemini

Option 3: Vertex AI

✨ Best for: Enterprise teams and production workloads

Benefits:

• Enterprise features: Advanced security and compliance
• Scalable: Higher rate limits with billing account
• Integration: Works with existing Google Cloud infrastructure

## Get your key from Google Cloud Console
export GOOGLE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
export GOOGLE_GENAI_USE_VERTEXAI=true
gemini

For Google Workspace accounts and other authentication methods, see the
authentication guide.

🚀 Getting Started

Basic Usage

Start in current directory

gemini

Include multiple directories

gemini --include-directories ../lib,../docs

Use specific model

gemini -m gemini-2.5-flash

Non-interactive mode for scripts

Get a simple text response:

gemini -p "Explain the architecture of this codebase"

For more advanced scripting, including how to parse JSON and handle errors, use
the --output-format json flag to get structured output:

gemini -p "Explain the architecture of this codebase" --output-format json

For real-time event streaming (useful for monitoring long-running operations),
use --output-format stream-json to get newline-delimited JSON events:

gemini -p "Run tests and deploy" --output-format stream-json

Quick Examples

Start a new project

cd new-project/
gemini
> Write me a Discord bot that answers questions using a FAQ.md file I will provide

Analyze existing code

git clone https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli
cd gemini-cli
gemini
> Give me a summary of all of the changes that went in yesterday

📚 Documentation

Getting Started

• Quickstart Guide - Get up
  and running quickly.
• Authentication Setup -
  Detailed auth configuration.
• Configuration Guide -
  Settings and customization.
• Keyboard Shortcuts -
  Productivity tips.

Core Features

• Commands Reference -
  All slash commands (/help, /chat, etc).
• Custom Commands -
  Create your own reusable commands.
• Context Files (GEMINI.md) -
  Provide persistent context to Gemini CLI.
• Checkpointing - Save
  and resume conversations.
• Token Caching -
  Optimize token usage.

Tools & Extensions

• Built-in Tools Overview
  • File System Operations
  • Shell Commands
  • Web Fetch & Search
• MCP Server Integration -
  Extend with custom tools.
• Custom Extensions -
  Build and share your own commands.

Advanced Topics

• Headless Mode (Scripting) -
  Use Gemini CLI in automated workflows.
• IDE Integration - VS
  Code companion.
• Sandboxing & Security - Safe
  execution environments.
• Trusted Folders -
  Control execution policies by folder.
• Enterprise Guide - Deploy
  and manage in a corporate environment.
• Telemetry & Monitoring -
  Usage tracking.
• Tools reference -
  Built-in tools overview.
• Local development -
  Local development tooling.

Troubleshooting & Support

• Troubleshooting Guide -
  Common issues and solutions.
• FAQ - Frequently asked
  questions.
• Use /bug command to report issues directly from the CLI.

Using MCP Servers

Configure MCP servers in ~/.gemini/settings.json to extend Gemini CLI with
custom tools:

> @github List my open pull requests
> @slack Send a summary of today's commits to #dev channel
> @database Run a query to find inactive users

See the
MCP Server Integration guide
for setup instructions.

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Gemini CLI is fully open source (Apache 2.0), and we
encourage the community to:

• Report bugs and suggest features.
• Improve documentation.
• Submit code improvements.
• Share your MCP servers and extensions.

See our Contributing Guide for development setup, coding
standards, and how to submit pull requests.

Check our Official Roadmap
for planned features and priorities.

📖 Resources

• Free Course -
  Learn the basics.
• Official Roadmap - See what's coming next.
• Changelog - See recent
  notable updates.
• NPM Package - Package
  registry.
• GitHub Issues -
  Report bugs or request features.
• Security Advisories -
  Security updates.

Uninstall

See the Uninstall Guide
for removal instructions.

📄 Legal

• License: Apache License 2.0
• Terms of Service:
  Terms & Privacy
• Security: Security Policy

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