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Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

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Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#121

Post by UmGuys »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #75
preommr wrote: post #57

I am not doing any of this. It becomes obsolete in literally weeks, and it also doesn't work 80% of the time. Like why write a mcp server for custom tasks when I don't know if the llm is going to reliably call it. My rule for AI has been steadfast for months (years?) now. I write (myself, not AI because then I spend more time guiding the AI instead of thinking about the problem) documentation for myself (templates, c…

A perspective which has helped me is viewing LLM-based offerings strictly as statistical document generators, whose usefulness is entirely dependent upon their training data set plus model evolution, and whose usage is best modeled as a form of constraint programming[0] lacking a formal (repeatable) grammar. As such, and when considering the subjectivity of natural languages in general, the best I hope for when using…

One hack is to end the prompt with: following solid architecture principles.

EG: Step 1: Define problem in PROBLEM.md Step 2: Ask agent to gather scope from codebase and update PROBLEM.md Step 3: Ask agent to create a plan following design and architecture best practices (solid, etc) and update PROBLEM.md Step 4: Ask agent to implement PROBLEM.md

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#122

Post by Ozzie_osman »

m4rtink wrote: post #111
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternative is to view the AI agent as a new developer on your team. If existing guidance + one-shot doesn't work, revisit the documentation and guidance (ie dotMD file), see what's missing, improve it, and try again. Like telling a new engineer "actually, here is how we do this thing". The engineer learns and next time gets it right. I don't do MCPs much because of effort and security risks. But I find the loop a…

I don't think you can say it learns - and that is part of the issue. Time mentoring a new colleague is well spent making the colleague grow professionally. Time hand-holding an AI agent is wasted when all you guidance inevitably falls out of the context window and it start making the same mistakes again.

That's why you put it in either code documentation or context files (like dotMD).

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#123

Post by cesarvarela »

novoreorx wrote: post #66

I really wish there were a de facto state-of-the-art coding agent that is LLM-agnostic, so that LLM providers wouldn't bother reinventing their own wheels like Codex and Gemini-CLI. They should be pluggable providers, not independent programs. In this way, the CLI would focus on refining the agentic logic and would grow faster than ever before. Currently Claude Code is the best, but I don't think Anthropic would pivo…

I think Claude Code is the best because it is not agnostic.

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#125

Post by bdangubic »

cesarvarela wrote: post #123
novoreorx wrote: post #66

I really wish there were a de facto state-of-the-art coding agent that is LLM-agnostic, so that LLM providers wouldn't bother reinventing their own wheels like Codex and Gemini-CLI. They should be pluggable providers, not independent programs. In this way, the CLI would focus on refining the agentic logic and would grow faster than ever before. Currently Claude Code is the best, but I don't think Anthropic would pivo…

I think Claude Code is the best because it is not agnostic.

exactly!

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#126

Post by siliconc0w »

preommr wrote: post #57

I am not doing any of this. It becomes obsolete in literally weeks, and it also doesn't work 80% of the time. Like why write a mcp server for custom tasks when I don't know if the llm is going to reliably call it. My rule for AI has been steadfast for months (years?) now. I write (myself, not AI because then I spend more time guiding the AI instead of thinking about the problem) documentation for myself (templates, c…

I've found that if it can't get it right within a few shot iteration - it's generally better to switch to writing with auto-complete which is still quite quick compared to the days of old.

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#127

Post by cavisne »

albert_e wrote: post #3

A lot it seems to mirror syntax of Claude Code Integration with Google Docs/Spreadsheets/Drive seems interesting but it seems to be via MCP so nothing exclusive/native to Gemini CLI I presume?

I think this guide is mostly AI slop. The Google docs section is full of "they might have support for this" "you could do this", "maybe they will add this MCP". How is that a guide?

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#128

Post by theptip »

novoreorx wrote: post #66

I really wish there were a de facto state-of-the-art coding agent that is LLM-agnostic, so that LLM providers wouldn't bother reinventing their own wheels like Codex and Gemini-CLI. They should be pluggable providers, not independent programs. In this way, the CLI would focus on refining the agentic logic and would grow faster than ever before. Currently Claude Code is the best, but I don't think Anthropic would pivo…

It’s not gonna happen any time soon. The model is fine-tuned on traces generated by the scaffolding (eg dependent on what tool calls are available), and the scaffolding is co-developed with the strengths/weaknesses of the specific model.

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#129

Post by syspec »

novoreorx wrote: post #66

I really wish there were a de facto state-of-the-art coding agent that is LLM-agnostic, so that LLM providers wouldn't bother reinventing their own wheels like Codex and Gemini-CLI. They should be pluggable providers, not independent programs. In this way, the CLI would focus on refining the agentic logic and would grow faster than ever before. Currently Claude Code is the best, but I don't think Anthropic would pivo…

There are actually a lot of those! One of the best things about using them is that you can swap models around at will.

I love to switch models and ask them what they thought of the previous models answer

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#130

Post by esafak »

therealmarv wrote: post #100
TeMPOraL wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is Aider (aider.chat), and it has been there for couple years now. Great tool. Alas, you don't install Claude Code or Gemini CLI for the actual CLI tool. You install it because the only way agentic coding makes sense is through subscription billing at the vendor - SOTA models burns through tokens too fast for pay-per-use API billing to make sense here; we're talking literally a day of basic use costing more tha…

Aider is in a sad state. The maintainer does not "maintain" for quite some time now (look at the open PRs and issues). It's not state of the art definitely but one of the first and best ones in the past. A fork was created, Aider CE, from some members of the Discord community https://github.com/dwash96/aider-ce The fork looks and works promising but there is (sadly) so much more development in the other AI CLI tools…

I came to the same conclusion. It's crickets over there: https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider/graphs/contributors
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