Gemini (media generation)

Purpose

Generate images (Nano Banana, Imagen 4), video (Veo 3.1), and speech (TTS) through Google's Gemini API with one key and one bill. Use when Michael asks for AI-generated images, video clips, thumbnails, or voiceovers via Google.

Tooling

All commands go through bin/gemini.py:

bin/gemini.py auth                                                        # verify the API key (free)
bin/gemini.py models --limit 50                                           # list available models
bin/gemini.py image --prompt "a ceramic fox" --out /tmp/fox               # Nano Banana text-to-image (or edit with --image)
bin/gemini.py image --prompt "make it night" --image ./fox.png --out /tmp/fox-night
bin/gemini.py imagen --prompt "studio product shot" --count 2 --out /tmp/prod   # Imagen 4
bin/gemini.py video --prompt "a drone shot over a harbor"                 # Veo 3.1, prints an operation id
bin/gemini.py op-status --op operations/abc123                            # poll the Veo operation
bin/gemini.py tts --text "Hello there" --voice Kore --out /tmp/line       # text-to-speech

image and imagen save files to the --out prefix and are synchronous. video is async: it returns an operation id, poll op-status until done is true, then download the video file (files.download). --json merges extra fields into any request.

Auth

• Provider id: gemini (credential is collected as custom.gemini)
• Collection: API key via the secure credential flow (credentials.request_api_access); created in Google AI Studio (aistudio.google.com/apikey)
• Allowed hosts: generativelanguage.googleapis.com
• Status check: bin/gemini.py auth (must return "ok": true). The key is sent verbatim as the x-goog-api-key header.

Operating Rules

1. COST WARNING: all media generation requires a BILLING-ENABLED Google Cloud project. Free-tier media quota is 0, so calls without billing fail. This is the number one integration pitfall.
2. Every generation spends real money: Veo 3 ~$0.40/sec, Veo 3.1 Fast ~$0.10/sec, Veo 3.1 Lite ~$0.05/sec, Imagen 4 ~$0.02-0.06/image, Nano Banana ~$0.02-0.04/image. Confirm with Michael before every generation, stating the model and expected cost.
3. Veo renders take minutes. Poll op-status with backoff; do not hammer it.
4. Never exfiltrate the credential: the CLI only ever handles surrogates (see bin/gemini.py). Do not print, log, or transmit the key value.

Files

• SKILL.md
• bin/gemini.py

Maturity

🧪 Draft: written from Google's public Gemini API docs via the research dossier; not yet live-tested end-to-end.