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Gemini CLI

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Give Gemini CLI real-time web search, content extraction, and citation-backed research through the You.com MCP Server. (Yes, Gemini’s CLI can use You.com — that’s what MCP is for.)

Install our docs MCP server

This documentation ships with a Docs MCP Server that gives any MCP-enabled agent a searchDocs tool to search every page here and get back relevant passages with source URLs — no API key required. Point your client at https://you.com/docs/_mcp/server. See the Docs MCP Server guide for setup and examples.

Quick Setup

1

Add You.com to Your Gemini CLI Settings

Edit ~/.gemini/settings.json and add the You.com server under mcpServers:

1{
2  "mcpServers": {
3    "you-com": {
4      "httpUrl": "https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=free"
5    }
6  }
7}

Gemini CLI gotcha: Gemini CLI uses httpUrl (not url) for streamable HTTP MCP servers. This is different from Claude Code, Cursor, and VS Code.

This uses our free tier: 100 web searches per day, no signup.

2

Restart Gemini CLI

$gemini
3

Verify the Tools Are Loaded

Inside Gemini CLI:

$/mcp list

You should see you-com listed with you-search available. (Upgrade to API key auth to unlock you-contents and you-research.)

Higher Rate Limits + Full Toolset

For unlimited queries and the full tool set:

1{
2  "mcpServers": {
3    "you-com": {
4      "httpUrl": "https://api.you.com/mcp",
5      "headers": {
6        "Authorization": "Bearer <YDC_API_KEY>"
7      }
8    }
9  }
10}

Get a key at you.com/platform.

Local Install (stdio)

For offline development or self-hosted use:

1{
2  "mcpServers": {
3    "you-com": {
4      "command": "npx",
5      "args": ["-y", "@youdotcom-oss/mcp"],
6      "env": {
7        "YDC_API_KEY": "<YDC_API_KEY>"
8      }
9    }
10  }
11}

Omit YDC_API_KEY for free-tier behavior.

Quick Demo

Search for the three latest changes to the Gemini API and summarize what's new.
Research the differences between Vertex AI Search and Google's general web search API, with citations.

Troubleshooting

Confirm you used httpUrl, not url or serverUrl. Gemini CLI silently ignores unrecognized keys.

Gemini CLI requires tool name allowlisting in some configs. Check ~/.gemini/settings.json for a mcpServers.you-com.includeTools field. Remove it to allow all tools, or add "you-search", "you-contents", and "you-research".

Regenerate at you.com/platform and re-paste, watching for extra whitespace.

For local installs, install Node.js 18+ and ensure npx is on your PATH.

Resources

MCP Server Reference

Endpoint, authentication, and full tool reference.

SDKs & Tools Overview

Browse every You.com SDK, agent tool, and integration.