gemini-mcp

MCP gateway for massive-payload Gemini analysis on the AI Studio free tier. Runs on a small VPS; a local Freebuff Desktop agent sends huge bodies to it and gets back a compact consolidated result — the agent's own context stays clean.

• Cascading Flash chain (newest first, deprecated aliases excluded) via gemini-router (per key×model RPD/RPM/TPM ledger shared with tldr-digest).
• Over-limit bodies: split into overlapping chunks, each marked [CHUNK N/M], analyzed separately, then consolidated (recursively if needed).
• thinking_level default medium, per-request override; opt-in overflow (flash-lite → gemma) when the daily quota is gone; hard stop otherwise; per-request wait policy for minute-limit resets (default: wait, countdown reported in progress).
• Deep progress to the caller (MCP progress + logging notifications + embedded trace), rotating disk logs, gemini-mcp quota|logs|calls|doctor in the terminal.
• Transports: SSH-stdio (primary) and streamable HTTP daemon (127.0.0.1, bearer).
• Dual backend: router (fleet: shared SQLite ledger on the VPS) or direct (plain Google AI Studio: same engine, a local persistent ledger, no server at all). backend: auto picks router only when persistent state exists; env GEMINI_MCP_BACKEND overrides. See docs/08-dual-mode.md.

Quick start

If you're human

pnpm dlx @vernikr/gemini-mcp setup     # or: uvx --from gemini-mcp-gateway gemini-mcp setup

Answer the questions: 1 Simple (direct to Google AI Studio, keys via hidden paste/file/skip) or 2 Fleet (your VPS — the wizard clones the repos, provisions the server, pushes keys, health-checks, all you answer is host + projects folder). It finishes with a numbered checklist: paste one JSON block into your MCP client (Freebuff/Claude Desktop/Cursor — or add --write-client freebuff|claude|cursor and it merges the block in for you, with a .bak backup), restart the client, send the agent the printed verify prompt. gemini-mcp doctor re-checks keys/chain/limits; gemini-mcp uninstall --yes removes everything the wizard wrote. Full client matrix + fleet JSON forms: docs/06-consumer.md.

If you're an AI agent

One shot, no TTY, machine-readable. Exit 0 + "ok": true = done; otherwise every failure carries error/deploy_error/clients_failed[].fix naming the exact remedy — apply it, re-run the same command (idempotent). Relay to the human only the two manual actions: restart the MCP client, then send the agent the prompt from verify_prompt (tool quota_status, MCP server gemini).

# direct (no server); keys from a file — never from shell history
npx -y @vernikr/gemini-mcp setup --backend direct \
  --keys-file /abs/path/keys.txt --write-client freebuff --json

# fleet (shared-quota server); clones/provisions/health-checks by itself
npx -y @vernikr/gemini-mcp setup --backend router --vps-host <ip> \
  [--vps-user root] [--projects-dir ~/projects] [--keys-file /abs/path/keys.txt] \
  --write-client freebuff --json

Fleet prerequisites (each failure message tells you how to check): GitHub auth for the private repos (git ls-remote https://github.com/vernikr/gemini-mcp), passwordless ssh <user>@<ip>, bash+rsync, macOS/Linux. No env vars needed afterwards: the gateway auto-discovers ~/.config/gemini-mcp/.

Analyzing a FILE (agent): never read it yourself and never inline its contents into a prompt. Call file_upload_ticket(filename, size_bytes) → HTTP PUT the raw bytes to upload_url → analyze_file(upload_id, task). Text documents are extracted and chunked server-side; PDFs, images and audio are sent to the provider once and answered in one measured request (never split). Quota is accounted either way; quota_status returns this recipe in its file_flow field, and raw RTF/PDF/DOCX payloads in text tools fail fast with a raw_document_inlined fix.

Direct mode needs nothing but API keys. Usage is tracked in a LOCAL persistent ledger (~/.config/gemini-mcp/state.db): quota counters survive restarts and are shared by all gateway processes on the machine — but not across machines (that's fleet mode: VPS daemon + backend: router). Every response says backend=direct in its report line; gemini-mcp uninstall --yes removes keys, config and ledger together. The npm shim @vernikr/gemini-mcp (pnpm-first install) ships the same core at the same version.

Development

uv sync --extra dev    # dev pin: gemini-router from a git tag (tool.uv.sources);
                       # published metadata uses the PyPI range — no auth needed
uv run pytest -q       # chunker, pipeline, tools/server, logging, backends, wizard —
                       # all faked, no network
uv run ruff check src tests
GEMINI_API_KEYS=... uv run gemini-mcp setup|quota|calls|logs|prune|doctor|smoke

Planned usage (Freebuff, ~/.agents/mcp.json)

{ "mcpServers": {
    "gemini": {                       // A) SSH-stdio — primary, encrypted, no open ports
      "command": "ssh",
      "args": ["root@38.244.152.2", "~/.local/bin/gemini-mcp", "stdio"] },
    "gemini-http": {                  // B) HTTP via `ssh -L 8790:127.0.0.1:8790 root@38.244.152.2`
      "type": "http", "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8790/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer $GEMINI_MCP_TOKEN" } } } }

Tools: analyze_large (chunking pipeline), gemini_generate (single shot), file_upload_ticket + analyze_file (file flow: upload → text extraction or the provider's Files API for PDFs/images/audio → analysis), analyze_result (async poll), quota_status, router_logs. Raw document bytes (RTF/PDF/DOCX markers) pasted into gemini_generate/analyze_large are rejected with raw_document_inlined + the exact fix — always use the file flow.

Deployment (M4)

From the workstation (sibling checkout of gemini-router required next to this repo):

bash scripts/run_remote.sh setup    # rsync both repos → venv, .env, systemd unit, doctor
bash scripts/run_remote.sh smoke    # first real-key run on the VPS (spends ≤1 RPD)
bash scripts/run_remote.sh status|logs

Freebuff Desktop wiring (SSH-stdio and HTTP-via-tunnel snippets, verification steps): docs/freebuff-wiring.md. The daemon never leaves 127.0.0.1:8790; no firewall changes are made (server-spec compliant).

Ops (after M4)

ssh root@38.244.152.2
sudo systemctl status gemini-mcp          # daemon (HTTP)
~/.local/bin/gemini-mcp quota    # what's left, per key×model (on the VPS, as its user)
~/.local/bin/gemini-mcp logs -f  # live app log
~/.local/bin/gemini-mcp keys    # the key pool: fingerprints, where it lives
gemini-mcp keys add <key>       # add a key: validated, probed free, service restarted

gemini-mcp keys edits the env file the daemon actually reads (the unit's EnvironmentFile) and restarts the service — the same command works on a workstation, where it writes the wizard's .env instead.

Conventions: English in files, Conventional Commits, SemVer, docs updated with every functional change (see AGENTS.md).