Feature Request: Support Gemini API Key (Google AI Studio) Authentication for Headless Environments

[agung2001]

Currently, antigravity-cli (agy) relies primarily on OAuth for user authentication. While this is seamless for interactive desktop use, it presents a significant bottleneck for automated, headless, or server-side workflows.

Specifically, in headless environments (e.g., cron jobs, CI/CD pipelines, remote staging servers). Standard OAuth-based consumer access is subject to strict daily request limits, which is highly inconvenient for power users or servers generating high-volume AI requests.

Supporting API key authentication from Google AI Studio would resolve these issues, enabling developers to run the CLI programmatically with their own API keys and custom quotas.

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Proposed Solution

I propose adding support for Gemini API key authentication via:

1. Environment Variable Configuration:
   The CLI should automatically detect and use a Gemini API key if present in the environment:

   export GEMINI_API_KEY="your_ai_studio_api_key_here"

   Or optionally a specific namespace:

   export ANTIGRAVITY_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"

2. CLI Option:
   Add a CLI flag to explicitly pass the API key, overriding any stored OAuth credentials:

   agy --api-key "your_api_key_here" ...

3. Fallback Mechanism:
   When invoking commands, the CLI should check for authentication in the following order of priority:

   1. Explicit --api-key flag.
   2. Environment variables (GEMINI_API_KEY / ANTIGRAVITY_API_KEY).
   3. Existing OAuth credentials stored locally.

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Additional Context

• This is particularly impactful for workflows like running daily or weekly automated codebase review scripts using agy --dangerously-skip-permissions under system crontabs.
• Using a direct Gemini API key allows the CLI to run immediately without interactive prompt steps, which is perfect for non-interactive scripts.

[matifali]

there's no documented way to authenticate agy in CI. every headless integration today (agy --print --dangerously-skip-permissions) assumes a prior interactive login on the user's machine. a GEMINI_API_KEY env var, --api-key flag, or agy auth setup-token that emits a paste-able refresh token would close the gap.

[bhavyajoshi-mahindra]

I have a custom enterprise Gemini API key which I want to use for an antigravity, but even after set GEMINI_API_KEY=xxx it uses my OAUTH login. Any solution for this?

[Manouchehri]

Why does Antigravity CLI not support the highest paying tier of customers?

[SaschaHeyer]

This is a hard regression from gemini-cli. The forced migration to agy quietly dropped one of the most basic things gemini-cli shipped out of the box: running headless with a GEMINI_API_KEY. Now that gemini-cli is sunset, there is currently no Google terminal agent that can run unattended (CI, cron, Cloud Run) with an API key at all. We have gone backwards on a core workflow.

Confirming this is still a hard blocker on agy 1.0.12, with a minimal repro.

The Gemini API key itself is fine. It authenticates directly against the API, including 3.5:

curl -s -H "x-goog-api-key: $KEY" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -X POST \
  "https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/models/gemini-3.5-flash:generateContent" \
  -d '{"contents":[{"parts":[{"text":"ping"}]}]}'
# -> HTTP 200

But agy ignores it in a headless / no-prior-login environment. Simulating a fresh CI/container box (empty $HOME, key set in every plausible var):

env HOME="$(mktemp -d)" \
    GEMINI_API_KEY="$KEY" ANTIGRAVITY_API_KEY="$KEY" GOOGLE_API_KEY="$KEY" \
    agy --print --dangerously-skip-permissions --print-timeout 40s \
        --model "Gemini 3.5 Flash (Low)" -p "Reply PONG"

Output:

Authentication required. Please visit the URL to log in:
  https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?...&response_type=code&...
Waiting for authentication (timeout 30s)...
Error: authentication timed out.

Same result with or without the API-key vars set. It only works when there is a cached OAuth login in the keychain from a prior interactive agy sign-in. So today there is no way to run agy --print in Cloud Run Jobs / CI / cron.

Any one of these would unblock it:

• honor GEMINI_API_KEY / a --api-key flag when no interactive session exists, or
• a service-account / ADC path, or
• an agy auth setup-token that emits a paste-able refresh token for ANTIGRAVITY_TOKEN.

[SaschaHeyer]

28 thumps up not a single response from Google.
With gemini-cli this would have been picked up by the community already.

[rodydavis]

Why does Antigravity CLI not support the highest paying tier of customers?

The current pay as you go option is supported by adding a GCP project id to Antigravity 2.0 or the CLI.

https://antigravity.google/docs/enterprise

Gemini API Key is not supported currently. We are reviewing the feedback from the community but do not have any updates at this time.

For using an API key in Antigravity you can use the SDK.
https://antigravity.google/docs/sdk/overview

The SDK should fit a lot of the use cases that you need for CI workflows.

[matifali]

@rodydavis

The current pay as you go option is supported by adding a GCP project id to Antigravity 2.0 or the CLI.
antigravity.google/docs/enterprise

Can this be added to https://antigravity.google/docs/cli/install#authentication-workflows as a supported auth method then?