🔐 Clarifying Authentication and Google Cloud Project Settings #13516

srithreepo · 2025-11-20T16:55:37Z

srithreepo
Nov 20, 2025
Maintainer

Hi friends,

We’ve noticed a lot of questions popping up regarding authentication, so I wanted to share a quick guide to help clarify things while we work on permanent improvements to both the product and the documentation.

Here is a quick breakdown to help you if you are currently blocked.

When to use a Google Cloud Project

There is often confusion about when to set the GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT or GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT_ID environment variables.

You should NOT set these variables if you are signing in as an individual using:

A free account
AI Pro
AI Ultra

ONLY set these variables if you or your administrator purchased your Gemini Code Assist license through the Gemini Code Assist Admin Console.

Troubleshooting Access Errors

If you believe you are running into an access error (e.g., you are unable to sign in), please follow these steps:

Check your environment: Ensure you have not set the Google Cloud Project environment variables if you are an individual user.

Try an interim solution that will be able to tell you through meaningful error messages why you are unable to access the service.
(we are working on getting this commited)

a. Check for existing variables.

```
# Check if variables are set
printenv | grep GOOGLE_CLOUD

# If they are set, unset them (example for Mac/Linux)
unset GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT
unset GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT_ID

```

b. Run the CLI from our fix branch.
npx https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli.git#feat/ineligible-tier-error
Note: Since this may not be fully uptodate please do not restart CLI if it offers a message saying updated to latest nightly.

c. Authenticate.
/auth

d. Select login with Google .

Hope this helps clear things up! Let us know if you're still seeing issues.

soisyourface · 2025-11-21T03:00:58Z

soisyourface
Nov 21, 2025

to be clear, if we are using the Vertex AI auth as indicated by the gemini /auth command, then this will not work for us, right? and we can't use gemini3 yet?

1 reply

soisyourface Dec 5, 2025

for anyone who is also in this same boat, i was able to get this to work after making sure the region used is global.

export GOOGLE_CLOUD_LOCATION=global

this makes gemini3 + vertexai work... didn't find any documentation. was only discovered after complaining to our awesome GCP engineer.

gammasts · 2025-11-21T04:00:40Z

gammasts
Nov 21, 2025

@srithreepo can you explicitly clarify the above as well in the context of a Google Developer Program Premium subscriber, which should have access to a Google Code Assist Standard license. The instructions for setting that up very vaguely describe selecting/creating a Google Cloud project, but also describe that there is no seat license assignment.

I've previously assumed that GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT needs to be configured with an empty project in order to apply the Standard license for gemini-cli, however questionable quota errors have made it unclear what the right combination of configuration settings is correct.

0 replies

lixiangci327-bit · 2025-11-23T10:18:41Z

lixiangci327-bit
Nov 23, 2025

This is the result I got using branches.

1 reply

1lqz1 Dec 6, 2025

me too so what do next

Neinndall · 2025-12-01T19:31:32Z

Neinndall
Dec 1, 2025

@srithreepo

You were following the case where some Google accounts were being forced, for some reason, to add the Google Project Cloud variable.
Basically, if I don't configure the variable to allow login, I get: Failed to log in. Message: This account requires setting the GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT or GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT_ID environment.

However, if I do set the variable, I get a second error:

You must be a named user on your organization's Gemini Code Assist Standard edition subscription to use this service. Please contact your administrator to request an entitlement to Gemini Code Assist Standard.

So I can't use anything, and it's been like this for over two months. I have one account that's still working—it's my main account—but it's shameful that a few weeks ago another error appeared, related to the first one.

╭─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ────────────────────────────── ──────────────────────────────╮
│ │
│ ? Get started │
│ │
│How would you like to authenticate for this project? │
│ │
│ ● 1. Login with Google │
│ 2. Use Gemini API Key │
│ 3. Vertex AI │
│ │
│ Failed to login. Message: This account requires setting the GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT or GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT_ID env │
│ var. See https://goo.gle/gemini-cli-auth-docs#workspace-gca │
│ │
│ (Use Enter to select) │
│ │
│ Terms of Services and Privacy Notice for Gemini CLI │
│ │
│ https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/blob/main/docs/tos-privacy.md │
│ │
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ──────────────────────────── ────────────────────────────╯

I.F. i configured GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT in .env file, for my FREE account... another shit error will appear:

GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT=titanium-scope-476822-s1

ℹ Waiting for authentication...

ℹ Authentication succeeded

Hi

✕ [API Error: [{ 
"mistake": { 
"code": 403, 
"message": "You must be a named user on your organization's\nGemini Code Assist Standard edition subscription to 
use thisservice. Please contact your\nadministrator to request an entitlement to Gemini Code Assist Standard 
edition.", 
"errors": [ 
{ 
"message": "You must be a named user on your organization's\nGemini Code Assist Standard edition subscription 
to use this service. Please contact your\nadministrator to request an entitlement to Gemini Code Assist Standard 
edition.", 
"domain": "global", 
"reason": "forbidden" 
} 
], 
"status": "PERMISSION_DENIED" 
} 
} 
]]

3 replies

Neinndall Dec 1, 2025

@srithreepo i dont have ANYTHING set in my PC.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-ChildItem Env: | Where-Object { $_.Name -like "GOOGLE_CLOUD*" }
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Remove-Item Env:GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT
Remove-Item : The path 'Env:\GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT' cannot be found because it does not exist.
Online: 1 Character: 1
+ Remove-Item Env:GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (Env:\GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT:String) [Remove-Item], ItemNotFoundException 
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Remove-Item Env:GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT_ID
Remove-Item : The path 'Env:\GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT_ID' cannot be found because it does not exist.
Online: 1 Character: 1
+ Remove-Item Env:GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT_ID
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (Env:\GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT_ID:String) [Remove-Item], ItemNotFoundExcepti 
on 
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32>

tangjw8908 Dec 3, 2025

same as you

Vescrity Dec 7, 2025

same

qw98qw98 · 2025-12-04T04:06:27Z

qw98qw98
Dec 4, 2025

Thank you for the detailed guide on authentication. However, I believe there may be inaccuracies in the instructions regarding when to set the GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT environment variable, based on my personal experience.

I have multiple Google Cloud projects for personal use, and when I attempted to log in via the gemini-cli, it prompted me to set GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT. Contrary to the guidance stating that individual users with free accounts, AI Pro, or AI Ultra should NOT set this variable, setting it resolved the issue for me and allowed successful authentication.

This suggests that the requirement might apply more broadly than indicated, even for personal accounts. I recommend revisiting the documentation to clarify this, as it could prevent confusion for users like myself who manage multiple projects. If there's additional context or an update to the CLI that addresses this, I'd appreciate more details. Thanks!

0 replies

chnange1024 · 2025-12-04T05:17:06Z

chnange1024
Dec 4, 2025

Google's policies are always vague, but the moment money is involved, everything suddenly becomes crystal clear. Anything that's free is deliberately blurry. The more people try to figure out how to deal with it, the more Google sees them as a bunch of idiots. Can't they fix it? No—they just don't want to.

0 replies

leeeezx · 2025-12-06T03:41:55Z

leeeezx
Dec 6, 2025

As you can see, I am a free tier user, and I'm encountering issues requiring google_cloud when authenticating the Gemini CLI.

Crucially, I was able to log in directly before without any problems. The CLI authentication issues seemed to start only after I created a dedicated project for 'Nano Banana Pro' in Google AI Studio (as shown in the screenshot). I suspect this action might be the cause of the authentication failure.

What steps should I take to resolve this and use the Gemini CLI normally again?

0 replies

1lqz1 · 2025-12-07T05:54:58Z

1lqz1
Dec 7, 2025

Has the user login problem been resolved? I’ve followed your earlier operation steps, but it still fails.

1 reply

Neinndall Dec 7, 2025

rly? they didnt launch any fix for it sooo still its bugged

1lqz1 · 2025-12-16T15:19:29Z

1lqz1
Dec 16, 2025

Any updates? This operation doesn’t seem to solve any problems.

0 replies

leeeezx · 2025-12-17T03:06:27Z

leeeezx
Dec 17, 2025

https://www.xiaohongshu.com/explore/685d49df000000000b02e80a?xsec_token=ABYB1rFSkiucyQilb1PRs9yqSYgojVqGkUR9QIYcBsA6s=&xsec_source=pc_like
---------------------I found a solution that might be worth considering. I followed it exactly and succeeded.when i have multiple project ，should set to the origin project which named “gemini api”

0 replies

🔐 Clarifying Authentication and Google Cloud Project Settings #13516

Uh oh!

srithreepo Nov 20, 2025 Maintainer

When to use a Google Cloud Project

Troubleshooting Access Errors

Replies: 10 comments · 6 replies

Uh oh!

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Uh oh!

srithreepo
Nov 20, 2025
Maintainer

Replies: 10 comments 6 replies