Using Downsizing with Gemini CLI

Why Gemini CLI isn't fully supported yet

Google's Gemini CLI has no OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible provider mode — it only speaks Google's native Gemini generateContent protocol, redirected via the GOOGLE_GEMINI_BASE_URLenvironment variable. Downsizing's router currently exposes Anthropic- and OpenAI-compatible routes only, so there is no Gemini-protocol-compatible endpoint yet. Real chat requests will fail until the router adds native Gemini protocol support.

Connecting anyway

If you still want to wire up the client side ahead of full server support, ds link gemini-cli correctly writes a managed block to $HOME/.env (Gemini CLI loads this file automatically at startup):

ds link gemini-cli

To remove it:

ds unlink gemini-cli

What you can do instead

If you want Downsizing's cost savings today, check out our other supported integrations — most editors and CLIs that support a custom Anthropic or OpenAI base URL (Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Goose, Codex, and more) work out of the box. We'll update this page as soon as the router adds native Gemini protocol support.