Using the cliGCP Command Line Interface

This tutorial guides you through setting up and using the cliGCP command line interface to interact with LLMs and MCP tools. By the end, you’ll be able to run the CLI and perform basic tasks with it.

Prerequisites

• Go >= 1.21 installed on your system
• Access to Google Cloud Platform with Vertex AI API enabled
• GCP authentication set up via gcloud auth login
• The gomcptest repository cloned and tools built (see the Getting Started guide)

Step 1: Understand the cliGCP Tool

The cliGCP tool is a command-line interface similar to tools like Claude Code. It connects directly to the Google Cloud Platform’s Vertex AI API to access Gemini models and can use local MCP tools to perform actions on your system.

Step 2: Build the cliGCP Tool

First, build the cliGCP tool if you haven’t already:

cd gomcptest
make all  # This builds all tools including cliGCP

If you only want to build cliGCP, you can run:

cd host/cliGCP/cmd
go build -o ../../../bin/cliGCP

Step 3: Set Up Environment Variables

The cliGCP tool requires environment variables for GCP configuration. You can set these directly or create an .envrc file:

cd bin
touch .envrc

Add the following content to the .envrc file:

export GCP_PROJECT=your-gcp-project-id
export GCP_REGION=us-central1
export GEMINI_MODELS=gemini-2.0-flash
export IMAGEN_MODELS=imagen-3.0-generate-002
export IMAGE_DIR=/tmp/images

Load the environment variables:

source .envrc

Step 4: Run the cliGCP Tool

Now you can run the cliGCP tool with MCP tools:

cd bin
./cliGCP -mcpservers "./GlobTool;./GrepTool;./LS;./View;./dispatch_agent -glob-path ./GlobTool -grep-path ./GrepTool -ls-path ./LS -view-path ./View;./Bash;./Replace"

You should see a welcome message and a prompt where you can start interacting with the CLI.

Step 5: Simple Queries

Let’s try a few simple interactions:

> Hello, who are you?

You should get a response introducing the agent.

Step 6: Using Tools

Now let’s try using some of the MCP tools:

> List the files in the current directory

The CLI should call the LS tool and show you the files in the current directory.

> Search for files with "go" in the name

The CLI will use the GlobTool to find files matching that pattern.

> Read the README.md file

The CLI will use the View tool to show you the contents of the README.md file.

Step 7: Creating a Simple Task

Let’s create a simple task that combines multiple tools:

> Create a new file called test.txt with the text "Hello, world!" and then verify it exists

The CLI should:

1. Use the Replace tool to create the file
2. Use the LS tool to verify the file exists
3. Use the View tool to show you the contents of the file

What You’ve Learned

In this tutorial, you’ve:

1. Set up the cliGCP environment
2. Run the CLI with MCP tools
3. Performed basic interactions with the CLI
4. Used various tools through the CLI to manipulate files
5. Created a simple workflow combining multiple tools

Next Steps

Now that you’re familiar with the cliGCP tool, you can:

• Explore more complex tasks that use multiple tools
• Try using the dispatch_agent for more complex operations
• Create custom tools and use them with the CLI
• Experiment with different Gemini models

Check out the How to Configure the cliGCP Tool guide for advanced configuration options.