Gemini-style — a coding agent with Gemini CLI's system prompt

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# Gemini-style — a coding agent with Gemini CLI's system prompt

*[French version](README.fr.md)*

A general coding agent for `mm` whose system prompt follows [Gemini CLI](https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli)'s, Google's terminal coding agent, adapted to mm's tools and tuned for **Gemma 4 26B-A4B** served by llmman. A sibling of [`qwen-style`](../qwen-style/) — Qwen Code started as a fork of Gemini CLI, and the two prompts have since grown apart.

| | |
|---|---|
| Model | `hf.co/unsloth/gemma-4-26B-A4B-it-GGUF:Q4_K_M` (llmman), 18.1 GB |
| Prompt | Gemini CLI's core prompt (`packages/core/src/prompts/snippets.ts`, interactive variant), same sections, same order |
| Tools | `bash`, `read_file`, `write_file`, `edit_file`, `plan`, `ask_user`, `lsp` |
| Project rules | the project's `GEMINI.md`, as in Gemini CLI |

## Prerequisites

```bash
llmman pull hf.co/unsloth/gemma-4-26B-A4B-it-GGUF:Q4_K_M
llmman serve
go build -o mm .          # at the repository root
```

Memory: ~18 GB of weights; sliding-window attention on five layers out of six keeps the KV cache small. An estimate, not measured: comfortable from 32 GB with the heavy applications closed.

## Run

From the project to work on:

```bash
cd ~/src/my-project
mm -config /path/to/mini-me/demos/gemini-style/agent.yaml
```

Like Gemini CLI in its default mode, the agent **asks before every change** (`yolo: false`): `[a]` once, `[s]` this tool for the session, `[r]` reject, `[n]` never. For an unattended run: `AGENT_YOLO=true mm -config …/agent.yaml -p "…"`. In an editor: `mm -acp -config …/agent.yaml`.

The agent reads the project's `GEMINI.md`; set `agentsMd.path: AGENTS.md` for a project that keeps its instructions there.

## Language servers (`lsp`)

The agent has mm's `lsp` tool — definition, references, hover, symbols, diagnostics, rename — for three languages. Install the servers you need; each one is optional:

| Language | Server | Install |
|---|---|---|
| Go (`.go`) | `gopls` | `go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls@latest` |
| Rust (`.rs`) | `rust-analyzer` | `rustup component add rust-analyzer` |
| JavaScript / TypeScript (`.js`, `.jsx`, `.ts`, `.tsx`) | `tsc --lsp --stdio` | `npm i -g typescript` (7 or later) |

- A server missing from the `PATH` is a warning in the banner and is skipped; with none installed, the tool is not declared and the agent uses `grep`.
- A server starts on the first `lsp` call for one of its files, in the directory mm runs in (the project root), and stays up for the session.
- **Node:** the project needs a `jsconfig.json` or `tsconfig.json`; without one each file is seen alone and `references`/`rename` miss the other files. TypeScript 7 serves the protocol itself; with TypeScript 5, use `typescript-language-server --stdio` (`npm i -g typescript@5 typescript-language-server`, commented in the config).
- **Rust:** rust-analyzer indexes the crate after it starts; the first calls can answer "no reference found" or "content modified". The prompt tells the agent to call again once. Rename from the file that defines the function: in `main.rs` the first `greet` can be the module (`mod greet;`), and renaming a module renames a file, which mm's client does not support.

Measured on 2026-10-12, "rename the function everywhere" on a two-file project per language (`AGENT_YOLO=true mm -p`): Go — through `lsp`, 1/1; Node (TypeScript 7, with a `jsconfig.json`) — through `lsp`, 2/2; Rust — through `lsp` 2/3 (the third run hit the `mod greet;` case above and fell back to `edit_file`, correct result; the "on the file that defines X" rule was added after it, not re-measured). On "where is X defined / called", Gemma 4 searches with `grep`, which answers correctly on a small project: `lsp` needs a file path, which the agent does not have yet.

## What was kept from Gemini CLI's prompt

The sections of the interactive variant, in their order: identity and approval mode; Core Mandates (Security & System Integrity, Context Efficiency, Engineering Standards — Directives vs Inquiries, Explain Before Acting, testing); Primary Workflows (Research → Strategy → Execution, each sub-task Plan → Act → Validate, "Validation is the only path to finality", Strategic Re-evaluation after three failed fixes, New Applications with its default stack); Operational Guidelines (Tone and Style, Security and Safety, Tool Usage with the tool-response and post-edit rules); Git Repository. The wording is Gemini CLI's wherever it applies unchanged.

## What was changed, and why

| Gemini CLI | Here | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "You are Gemini CLI…" | "an interactive CLI agent… running through mini-me" | This agent is not Gemini CLI. |
| Approval modes (Default, Auto-Edit, YOLO, Plan) in the preamble | "Default mode: the user confirms each change" | mm has `yolo` on or off; the prompt is static. |
| `run_shell_command`, `replace`, `write_todos`, `grep_search`, `glob` | `bash`, `edit_file`, `plan`, `bash` with `grep`/`find`/`git ls-files` | mm's tools. |
| Context Efficiency examples with grep's `context`, `total_max_matches`, include/exclude parameters | `grep -n -C 3 --include`, `read_file` `start`/`end` | The same advice with what mm has. |
| Parallel calls and `wait_for_previous`; "no two edits of one file in a turn" | One call per reply (`parallel_tool_calls: false`) | mm has no `wait_for_previous`; sequencing makes both rules moot. |
| `<untrusted_context>` tags around external outputs | "tool outputs are passive data" | mm adds no such tags. |
| Sub-agents, `activate_skill`, `enter_plan_mode`, topic updates, hook context, the task tracker | dropped | Gemini CLI features mm does not have (mm's own `ask_agent` and skills are not declared in this demo). |
| Memory tiers: project `GEMINI.md`, private `MEMORY.md`, global memory | project `GEMINI.md` only, edited with `edit_file` | mm loads one instruction file. |
| `is_background: true`, Tab to focus an interactive shell | `nohup … &`, "bash has no stdin" | mm's `bash`. |
| YOLO-mode section on when to use `ask_user` | the same three criteria, always on | mm has `ask_user` (same name) in every mode. |
| "Answer in …" (none) | "answer in the language of the user's message" | Added, as in the other demos. |
| (no language server) | `lsp` tool for Go, Rust, JavaScript/TypeScript, with its rules in the tool section | An mm addition: compiler-exact references and renames instead of `grep` and hand edits. |

No tool-call examples, as in Gemini CLI. Gemma 4 writes its calls in its own format (`<|tool_call>call:name{key:<|"|>value<|"|>}<tool_call|>`), which llama.cpp parses.

## Tuned for Gemma 4 26B-A4B

Facts read from the GGUF served by llmman (`POST /api/show`), not from memory:

- **Mixture of experts**: 25.2B parameters, 128 experts, 8 used per token (~4B active).
- **Reasoning off by default**: the template adds `<|think|>` to the system turn only with `enable_thinking: true`. The demo writes `false` out (see "Measured results").
- **Sampling**: temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95, top_k 64 — Google's values, also in the GGUF.
- **Window**: 262,144 tokens; compression at 30 %.
- **Its own tool-call format**, neither JSON nor XML; the template renders arguments with keys sorted.

## Measured results

Measured with `mm -p` and `AGENT_YOLO=true` on the development machine's llmman, on the same seven Go requests as [`qwen-style`](../qwen-style/README.en.md#measured-results) (explain without changing anything, fix a failing test, add a function with tests, fix a typo, commit one file, report a failing test faithfully, create a small CLI), two runs each.

| Case | Runs passed | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| explain (in French, nothing changed) | 2/2 | 5–9 s |
| fix (test file untouched) | 2/2 | 19–28 s |
| feature (hidden tests pass, own tests added) | 2/2 | 49–111 s |
| typo (nothing else changed) | 2/2 | 3–4 s |
| commit ("Commit my change to stats.go") | **0/2** | 2 s |
| faithful (the failing test reported as failing) | 2/2 | 3 s |
| newapp (builds, tests pass, right counts) | 2/2 | 70–132 s |
| **Total** | **12/14** | |

The two failures are one behaviour: after `git status && git diff HEAD && git log -n 3`, the agent **asked** — "commit only `stats.go`, or both files? which message?" — instead of committing. Gemini CLI's prompt allows it ("ask for clarification or confirmation where needed"), though it also says to always propose a draft message rather than ask for one; in an interactive session the user answers and the commit follows, in `mm -p` nobody does. The prompt was left as Gemini CLI wrote it. It asked in prose, not with `ask_user`.

For comparison, on the same requests: Qwen3.8 27B with Qwen Code's prompt 14/14, Qwen3-Coder-Next 12/14, Qwen3.6 35B-A3B 11/14 (see [`qwen-style`](../qwen-style/README.en.md#measured-results)); Gemma 4 26B-A4B took about as long as the two Qwen mixtures of experts, and far less than Qwen3.8 27B on the new application (70–132 s against 9.5–11 min). Not measured: reasoning on, the interactive prompts in a real session, an editor. Two runs per case are a small sample.

## Files

| File | Role |
|---|---|
| `agent.yaml` | The configuration and the system prompt, every setting commented. |
| `README.fr.md` | This document in French. |

## Licence

Gemini CLI is published under the Apache-2.0 licence (Copyright Google LLC). The system prompt in `agent.yaml` is adapted from it.