---

name: gemini-ocr-cli description: "Gemini-powered OCR via a global CLI, with onboarding-first setup, Markdown-first output, and explicit PDF mode control."

gemini-ocr-cli

When to use

Use this skill when a task needs high-quality OCR from a local terminal workflow and the host model’s own OCR is not reliable enough.

Use it especially when an agent must:

• OCR a local image into faithful Markdown,
• OCR a local PDF into faithful Markdown,
• preserve page structure, tables, and labels as well as possible,
• work through a deterministic CLI instead of ad-hoc multimodal prompting.

Preconditions

• Ensure the CLI is globally available on PATH:
  • preferred: npm install -g @codecell-germany/gemini-ocr-agent-skill
  • verify: gemini-ocr --help
• Install the skill payload if needed:
  • gemini-ocr-skill install --force
• Required secret env:
  • GEMINI_API_KEY=<api-key>
• Supported alias secret env:
  • GOOGLE_GENERATIVE_AI_API_KEY=<api-key>
• Supported fallback secret env:
  • GOOGLE_API_KEY=<api-key>
• Optional model override:
  • GEMINI_OCR_MODEL=gemini-3-flash-preview

Core workflow

1. Verify the public CLI surface:

• gemini-ocr --help

2. Validate the environment:

• gemini-ocr doctor --json

3. If the environment is incomplete, print the setup guide:

• gemini-ocr setup --language en
• gemini-ocr setup --language de

4. Export one of the supported API key env vars and rerun:

• gemini-ocr doctor --json

5. OCR an image:

• gemini-ocr scan-image /absolute/path/to/image.png

6. OCR a PDF:

• gemini-ocr scan-pdf /absolute/path/to/document.pdf

7. Use JSON output only when the calling workflow needs the structured OCR object:

• gemini-ocr scan-pdf /absolute/path/to/document.pdf --format json

Guardrails

• Use the public CLI names gemini-ocr and gemini-ocr-skill.
• Do not bypass the product surface with repo-local entrypoints such as node dist/index.js.
• Do not call hidden installed runtime paths such as ~/.codex/tools/gemini-ocr-cli/dist/index.js.
• Inputs are sent to Gemini for remote processing. Do not use the tool on documents that must stay fully local unless that remote-processing policy is acceptable.
• Default output is Markdown on stdout.
• Diagnostics and warnings belong on stderr.
• --format json is the machine-readable escape hatch.
• --pdf-mode auto can retry a failed native PDF request as raster OCR when pdftoppm is available.
• --pdf-mode raster requires pdftoppm.
• API keys remain in shell env. Do not paste them into prompts, tickets, screenshots, or chats.
• Prefer doctor before the first real OCR run in a new shell or environment.

References

• Main overview: references/overview.md
• Agent onboarding: references/agent-onboarding.md
• OCR first run: references/ocr-first-run.md
• Command cheat sheet: references/command-cheatsheet.md
• Architecture: knowledge/ARCHITECTURE.md
• Release checklist: knowledge/RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md