Forget about AI costs: Google just changed the game with open-source Gemini CLI that will be free for most developers

For power users and many developers, the command line is the foundational interface for controlling a system and its applications.

Also sometimes referred to as a terminal, the command line interface (CLI) is how users issue commands and build applications as an alternative, or as a complement, to an integrated developer environment (IDE) tool. While it might seem almost anachronistic that a text-only interface accessible with a keyboard (CLI doesn’t even use a mouse) can be modern, it remains a mainstay of developers around the world. In the modern era of generative AI, it’s becoming more powerful too.

Today Google announced its open-source Gemini-CLI that brings natural language command execution directly to developer terminals. Beyond natural language, it brings the power of Google’s Gemini Pro 2.5 — and it does it mostly for free.

The free ...