The Gemini assistant will need to be several times better than the existing tools to even fractionally displace them.
We have tried out Gemini code review vs Copilot code review and Gemini is consistently offering better code review tips. It has officially caught multiple potential bugs, even a few that reviewers might have missed, so it's definitely been additive.
Observability looks way worse. Github Agent has a full UX built into the Github PR that lets you dig into the agent behavior. This requires you to egress text logs and make sense of it yourself.
Also curious about customization. Github just rolled out "agent writes its own instructions" https://github.blog/changelog/2025-08-06-copilot-coding-agen... which is super cool, how do I customize this one and teach it how to start and manage apps across my monorepo?
Yeah that's on you. Add a `copilot-instructions.md` file and configure the `copilot-setup-steps.yml` workflow to setup your environment. Both are supported more or less since Copilot Agent got released (though in "preview")
Most agents read `AGENTS.md`, I just symlink it to CLAUDE.md, and do the same for GEMINI.md
Also, I thought Jules was the "coding agent" they are working on. Now this is taking it over or is this like another case of Google self-competing?
Someone needs to take charge at this company with a strong vision, because they are all over the place and spreading themselves thin, which in turn spreads thin the customer/brand equity.
At this point, as someone who: - Has been writing Android code for about 13 years now
- Has collaborated with Google on stuff
- Lead Google developer communities and conferences
- Knows many, many GDE's and has discussions with them often
- Uses Gemini API for their product
I'm so damn confused. How is a normal customer expected to understand then?
- They have 2 SDK's for communicating to their Gemini API.
- The documentation is spread and thrown all over the place.
- Half the time I'm trying to do something I have to dig through their code to find how to.
- The features I really want are rate limited or available only to private testers.
- They have 3 coding agents now.
- Even thought they have access to my Google Account and my phone, their Gemini app is useless.
- I tried to do a basic thing (add a service account) in Google Cloud recently, which wasn't allowed due to default rules that are deprecated and are so confusing to change due to their confusing UX.
The only usable thing is the AI studio, which is a great tool for experimenting with diff models and improved the DX of getting a Gemini API key by a mile.
I'd say congrats on the release, but honestly this is such a mid low hanging fruit of a product.
Similarly I tried contacting some human support for billing issues but was denied because automated checks deemed me unworthy for consulting anything besides documentation pages which i didn't understood so i gave up and switched to another cloud provider.
Well, they do have a lot to spread. But yeah, intense amount of overlap.
If instead of Google search they made 3 products each called "Google Search", "Super Search" and "YaGoo!", they wouldn't be where they're at today.
This is the funniest thing to me. When you open the app, Gemini says:
"Hello, Vasco"
In the welcome screen. I then ask this amazing intelligence this question:
"What's my name?"
"I do not know your name. I am an AI and I don't have access to your personal information."
I know why it happens, but it's so funny.
Personally, I would rather Google did this sort of experimentation even if it is more confusing.
Or I could be wrong about this. But following NotebookLLM, it seemed like the team developing it had a lot of autonomy.
And if it isn't shut down, it is left in that terrible half-documented state, with confusing integrations and terribly integrated into the rest of the product.
Considering I'm confused both as a customer, user and a shareholder, I'd say the tactic isn't working.
This appears to just be a plugin where you do things on GitHub, that sends out notifications to gemini-cli running on cloud, then gemini-cli responds and sends notifications back.
Basically just saving you the hassle of cloning at a specific commit, calling gemini-cli manually, and then uploading the result manually.
The chaos you describe is actually a significant positive in research environments. It's not spreading oneself thin, it is diversifying and decorrelating ones' efforts. You can't centrally plan all innovation.
But for the interface between the customer and the research output, which is a software and product problem, that definitely needs a different approach.
Gemini CLI works synchronously with the user (unless you YOLO) and in your own directory on your own machine on your own checkout.
Two different modalities.
[1]: https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/blob/main/docs/c...
So i THINK this is what it IS:
A GitHub Action that can be included in GitHub workflow YAML files. It executes the Gemini CLI, passing in prompts, repo context, and event data (like issue text or PR diffs) to generate responses or perform actions. In other words: it's a wrapper that installs and runs the Gemini CLI inside GitHub Actions environments.
It can use GitHub's API (via tokens or apps) to read repo data (issues, PRs, code) and write back (e.g., add labels, comments, or code suggestions). It makes calls to standard HTTPS API endpoints for Gemini LLM" (via the CLI's backend interactions with Google's Gemini API)
Why not follow Claude Code naming with this and just call it `gemini github action` or `run gemini`?
As Microsoft own GitHub and it's a competitor.
Isn't this a recipe for disaster, or is all the FUD around agents wrecking havoc getting to me? I love Claude Code, but it can be somewhat bonkers and is at least at arms length from doing any real damage to my code (assuming I'm following good dev practices, and don't let it loose on my wider filesystem).
> Delegate work with an "@ mini-cli" tag and the agent can complete a range of tasks, from writing bugs to fixing bugs
turblety•3h ago
Again, with the complicated subscription. Please just give us a monthly subscription for developers that I can pay whatever, and then use Gemini CLI, this github action, Gemini chat, Jules, etc. Just like Claude and their max subscription.
This would be a game changer for me.
Sorry, congrats on the release too. This looks cool!
siva7•3h ago
dude250711•3h ago
The primary goals are promotions, bonuses and stock price.
siva7•2h ago
If that's the case, last i checked they are doing pretty well on stock price.
johnecheck•1h ago
radarsat1•1h ago
I mean this has been enough to get my feet wet and have some fun with exploring agent-based development, no doubt, and I appreciate it, but I'm having a hard time crossing my experience with,
> generous free-of-charge quotas
as they say. It's not that generous if it stops working after 5 mins? (This morning literally a single sentence I typed into Crush resulted in some back and forth I guess it called the API a few times and it just rate limited-out. Fine, it was probably a lot of requests going on, but, but I literally gave it a single small job to do and it couldn't finish it.)
Meanwhile I seem to be able to use the Gemini web app endlessly and haven't hit any limits yet.
ryoshu•1h ago
Glad I didn't add an API key. I've had friends who did and ended up with $xxx in charges because the models can't think or use tools properly.