Gemini CLI

Google’s gemini-cli (and the family of CLIs / IDE extensions built on top of it) speaks the Gemini Native protocol — query-param auth (?key=...) against /v1beta/models/{model}:generateContent. ByteSpike serves that protocol verbatim at llm.bytespike.ai/v1beta.

Prerequisites

A ByteSpike account + a key bound to the gemini-default group (or any group that serves Gemini models). See Register.

Gemini CLI installed:

npm install -g @google/generative-ai-cli
# or whichever Gemini CLI your team uses

Configure

Gemini CLIs typically read GEMINI_API_KEY and let you override the base URL via env or flag.

export GEMINI_API_KEY="sk-byts-..."
export GEMINI_BASE_URL="https://llm.bytespike.ai/v1beta"

For the official Google CLI that doesn’t expose a base-URL flag, set the variable per its docs (some versions read GOOGLE_API_BASE_URL); or use the raw curl form (next section) inside a wrapper script.

Verify

curl "https://llm.bytespike.ai/v1beta/models/gemini-3.1-pro:generateContent?key=$GEMINI_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "contents": [{"parts": [{"text": "say hi"}]}]
  }'

Expect a 200 with a candidates[0].content.parts[0].text field, plus the standard X-Quota-Remaining-Credits header.

Switching models

The model name lives in the URL path:

/v1beta/models/gemini-3-5-flash:generateContent
/v1beta/models/gemini-3-flash-lite:generateContent

Any model id from your key’s group works. See /v1beta reference for the full request shape.

Streaming

Switch the method suffix:

curl "https://llm.bytespike.ai/v1beta/models/gemini-3.1-pro:streamGenerateContent?alt=sse&key=$GEMINI_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "contents": [{"parts": [{"text": "explain SSE briefly"}]}]
  }'

SSE stream matches Google’s native format — data: {chunk}\n\n blocks terminated by a final [DONE] marker.

SDKs

Both Google’s official Generative AI SDK and most third-party Gemini clients accept a baseUrl override at client construction:

import google.generativeai as genai
genai.configure(
    api_key="sk-byts-...",
    transport="rest",
    client_options={"api_endpoint": "llm.bytespike.ai"}
)
model = genai.GenerativeModel("gemini-3-5-flash")
print(model.generate_content("hello").text)

import { GoogleGenerativeAI } from "@google/generative-ai";

const genAI = new GoogleGenerativeAI("sk-byts-...", {
  baseUrl: "https://llm.bytespike.ai",
});
const model = genAI.getGenerativeModel({ model: "gemini-3-5-flash" });
const result = await model.generateContent("hello");
console.log(result.response.text());

Image + video models via Gemini stack

Veo (Google’s video model) ships under the Gemini API surface but the long-running shape uses ByteSpike’s async tasks API instead:

curl https://llm.bytespike.ai/v1/tasks/submit \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BYTESPIKE_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "model": "veo-3-1",
    "params": {"prompt": "...", "duration_seconds": 8}
  }'

See POST /tasks/submit and the Veo 3.1 model page.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Fix
`401 API key not valid`	Wrong key or missing query param	Verify `?key=sk-byts-...` is present and correct
`403 PERMISSION_DENIED`	Model not in key’s group	Switch to `gemini-default` group or pick another model
`404 NOT_FOUND` (model)	Model id typo — ByteSpike uses the dashed form (`gemini-3-5-flash`), not Google’s dotted form (`gemini-3.5-flash`)	Use the slugs from `/api/v1/me/available-models`
Stream cuts after first chunk	Some CLIs default to non-streaming endpoint; check the `:streamGenerateContent` suffix	Switch to `streamGenerateContent`

/v1beta reference

Full request / response / streaming protocol.

Gemini models

Models, capabilities, pricing.

Claude Code CLI

The Anthropic-native equivalent.

Cursor IDE

Editor-level Gemini integration.

Get started

Client setup

Migrate from

Concepts

Models

Internal (DOSIA-coupled)

Prerequisites

Configure

Verify

Switching models

Streaming

SDKs

Image + video models via Gemini stack

Troubleshooting

Next

/v1beta reference

Gemini models

Claude Code CLI

Cursor IDE

​Prerequisites

​Configure

​Verify

​Switching models

​Streaming

​SDKs

​Image + video models via Gemini stack

​Troubleshooting

​Next

/v1beta reference

Gemini models

Claude Code CLI

Cursor IDE

Prerequisites

Configure

Verify

Switching models

Streaming

SDKs

Image + video models via Gemini stack

Troubleshooting

Next