KinetAios: a desktop workbench that hosts Gemini CLI as a parallel channel (stream-json UI, resume, shared memory)

[phinn]

Hi Gemini CLI team & community — I maintain KinetAios, an open-source (GPL-3.0) desktop workbench that hosts CLI coding agents in parallel channels, and Gemini CLI now ships as a built-in plugin engine.

What it is

KinetAios gives terminal agents a durable home: multi-channel sessions with streaming output, tool-call timelines, cost/token tracking, and a shared local long-term memory (SQLite FTS5) that persists across conversations and engines. Everything stays on your machine.

How gemini fits in

The new gemini-cli plugin engine wraps gemini --output-format stream-json through a declarative adapter, with a dedicated jsonl-gemini protocol parser built from the official event schema (packages/core/src/output/types.ts):

• Real-time rendering of init / message (delta streaming) / tool_use / tool_result / result events — same treatment as native Claude Code and Codex engines
• Session resume via -r <session_id> (session id captured from the init event, restored on each turn)
• --approval-mode exposed as a user setting (default / auto_edit / yolo / plan)
• Run several gemini channels side-by-side with different prompts, all sharing the same local memory pool
• Non-interactive input works over both argv (unix) and stdin (Windows cmd shim — gemini reads piped stdin and prepends it to the prompt, so no hangs)

Why bother

gemini -p in a terminal gives you one scrollback buffer per run. KinetAios gives those headless sessions a persistent UI: readable tool timelines, per-turn token stats (folded from result.stats), session resume after app restarts, and 30+ built-in tools alongside. Your gemini auth and settings stay untouched.

macOS (dmg) and Windows (exe): https://github.com/phinn/KinetAios/releases/latest

Repo: https://github.com/phinn/KinetAios

The jsonl-gemini protocol preset is generic — any CLI that emits the same event schema plugs in with a one-file manifest. Feedback welcome, especially from anyone running gemini with MCP servers or custom approval setups.