Gemini CLI vs Antigravity CLI: which one can you still use?

We make Shuriken. We tried to be fair; corrections welcome at office@shuriken.sh.

Quick answer#

Gemini CLI vs Antigravity CLI comes down to how you sign in. Since 18 June 2026, a personal Google account (the free Gemini Code Assist for individuals, Google AI Pro or Ultra) no longer works in Gemini CLI, and Google's replacement for it is Antigravity CLI, run as agy. A Gemini Code Assist Standard or Enterprise licence, or a paid Gemini API key, still runs Gemini CLI.

So with a personal account there is no choice to make. If Gemini CLI started refusing your personal sign-in in June, install agy; your GEMINI.md and AGENTS.md files come along unchanged, and your MCP servers move to a new file. If your company pays for Code Assist, or you bill an API key, Gemini CLI still works. Google ships new releases of it, and it is still open source.

At a glance#

Every cell comes from Google's own docs and GitHub repositories, read on 24 October 2026.

What changed on 18 June 2026#

On 19 May 2026 Google announced that "On June 18, 2026, Gemini CLI and Gemini Code Assist IDE extensions will stop serving requests for Google AI Pro and Ultra", and for people using them at no charge through Gemini Code Assist for individuals (Google Developers Blog). Standard and Enterprise licence holders were told their "access remains unchanged", and "Gemini CLI will remain accessible via paid Gemini and Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform API keys."

The Gemini CLI repository now opens with one line for everyone else: "Unpaid tier and Google One users: Gemini CLI was replaced by Antigravity CLI on June 18th, 2026" (GitHub).

Google describes Antigravity CLI as a new program, not a rename. It is "Built in Go" and "shares the same agent harness as Antigravity 2.0", Google's desktop app. Agent Skills, Hooks and Subagents carry over, extensions become Antigravity plugins, and Google says plainly "there won't be 1:1 feature parity right out of the gate."

What Gemini CLI's old daily limits were, and which sign-ins still have them, is in our Gemini CLI free tier guide. We don't repeat the numbers here.

What Gemini CLI still does well#

It is open source under Apache-2.0, so you can read what it does, patch it or pin a version. It is also still maintained: v0.65.0 came out on 20 October 2026 (releases).

Its setup is the one most guides were written for. One ~/.gemini/settings.json holds the settings and the MCP servers, gemini mcp add writes to the user or the project file, and extensions install from a GitHub URL. An extension can bundle prompts, MCP servers, custom commands, themes, hooks, subagents and skills (extensions).

And for a company already on Google Cloud, a Code Assist licence covers it, so nobody has to switch tools or move config.

What Antigravity CLI does well#

It takes the accounts most people have. A free personal Google account, Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra all sign in. Google's plans page gives accounts without Pro or Ultra "A meaningful quota, refreshed weekly", Pro a quota "refreshed every five hours until the weekly limit is reached", and Ultra the highest one plus "Access to third-party models" (plans). /usage shows the quota per model, and /credits shows the credits you have left.

It runs Gemini 4 Argon. Google's models page lists it for the Antigravity CLI on Google AI Pro, Ultra and Enterprise plans, not on the free one. Gemini CLI's README says it "has not been optimized for Gemini 4 Argon" and sends you to Antigravity for it.

Its add-ons are one unit. A plugin is a namespaced bundle of skills, agents, rules, MCP servers and hooks, kept in ~/.gemini/antigravity-cli/plugins/<name>/ (features). The CLI also has a terminal sandbox ("enableTerminalSandbox": true, off by default), a headless mode with -p, and --conversation <id> or -c to pick a conversation up again (reference).

How to migrate from Gemini CLI to Antigravity CLI#

These steps follow Google's migration page, with the sign-in from its install page. None of them needs Shuriken.

1. Install it. On macOS and Linux run curl -fsSL https://antigravity.google/cli/install.sh | bash; on Windows PowerShell run irm https://antigravity.google/cli/install.ps1 | iex. Check it with agy --version.
2. Run agy on the machine where your Gemini CLI config lives. On first launch it finds the legacy config and shows a checklist: you pick which extensions and global settings to convert, and it moves your session tokens into the operating system's keyring.
3. Sign in. A personal Google account opens the browser; over SSH, agy prints a URL to open on your own machine and asks for the code back. For an API key, set "modelProvider": "gemini" in ~/.gemini/antigravity-cli/settings.json and export GEMINI_API_KEY. Google warns that the variable alone "has no effect."
4. Bring extensions you skipped with agy plugin import gemini. It turns them into plugins, your custom commands into skills, and moves their MCP servers into mcp_config.json.
5. Move workspace skills by hand. Global skills go from ~/.gemini/skills/ to ~/.gemini/antigravity-cli/skills/, but a project's .gemini/skills/ folder must be renamed to .agents/skills/ yourself.
6. Leave GEMINI.md and AGENTS.md alone. "No modifications are needed to your existing rule documents", and the global ~/.gemini/GEMINI.md is still read.

Google adds one caveat: some custom terminal themes and experimental visual overlays from Gemini CLI might not come across.

Antigravity CLI MCP config, side by side#

Gemini CLI keeps MCP servers inline, in an mcpServers object in ~/.gemini/settings.json (all projects) or .gemini/settings.json (one project) (MCP docs). Antigravity CLI gives them a file of their own: ~/.gemini/config/mcp_config.json for all projects, .agents/mcp_config.json for one.

agy plugin import gemini moves the servers that came inside extensions. Google's page doesn't say the first-run checklist moves servers you declared inline in settings.json, so open mcp_config.json after migrating and copy over any that are missing. For a remote server, rename one key on the way: Gemini CLI's url or httpUrl becomes serverUrl, and an env block can carry its token. Inside agy, /mcp opens the panel that lists and manages them.

If a server works in Gemini CLI and not in agy, check the file location and the key name first. After that, it fails like in any MCP client. Two checks from our Codex MCP guide work here unchanged: run the server's command yourself in a terminal, and make sure it writes nothing but MCP messages to stdout.

Which one should you use?#

• If you used Gemini CLI with a personal Google account, free or paid, move to Antigravity CLI. Gemini CLI won't serve that sign-in any more.
• If your company gives you a Code Assist Standard or Enterprise licence, nothing changed for you. Keep Gemini CLI if your team's setup is built on it, and try agy with a Gemini Enterprise account if your admin has set one up.
• If you pay for a Gemini API key, both take it. Gemini CLI is the open-source one; Antigravity CLI is the one Gemini CLI's README points to for Gemini 4 Argon.
• If you want to read or patch the code, only Gemini CLI publishes its source.
• If you'd rather leave Google's tools, our Gemini CLI alternatives page sorts the other agents by how you sign in, and Claude Code vs Gemini CLI sets the two side by side on access, limits and price.

Pricing#

Neither CLI has a price of its own on Google's pages. Gemini CLI on a licence is paid for with your company's Code Assist subscription, and on an API key by the token. Antigravity CLI is included in every Antigravity plan: Google's plans page lists "the CLI" among the features of all of them, the free one included. Pro and Ultra can buy AI credits for use beyond the plan's quota.

Using them together#

Shuriken runs both, along with Claude Code, Codex and the rest of its 67 coding agents, from one app on your Mac, Windows or Linux computer.

Gemini CLI opens as a Shuriken chat on the Gemini sources you add: a licensed Google sign-in or a paid Gemini API key. Each Google sign-in is kept in its own folder, so a second one never replaces the first. Shuriken does hot swapping for them: when the source in use nears its limit, it moves your Gemini chats to another of your Gemini sources at the end of their current turn (source switching). Add only accounts and keys you own and are entitled to use; providers' terms may not allow sharing a subscription sign-in.

Antigravity runs in chat through Google's own ACP server. When you install Antigravity CLI from Shuriken, the installer downloads that server from Google with it and checks it against a pinned SHA-256. Shuriken doesn't add Antigravity sign-ins as sources, so it doesn't move Antigravity chats between accounts. Either agent can also be opened in its own terminal interface from the chat tab.

Every chat except a project's Main chat gets its own branch in its own git worktree, so a Gemini CLI chat on your licence and an Antigravity chat on your personal account can work in the same project without editing the same files. If you have both kinds of Google access, download Shuriken and run them side by side.