houtini-ai/gemini-mcp

I've had this Gemini MCP server running in my Claude Desktop setup for the best part of a year now. It's one of the few I leave switched on permanently. Not because Gemini replaces Claude (it doesn't), but because grounded search, image generation, SVG diagrams and video are things Gemini happens to do well, and having them as tools inside Claude beats flipping between browser tabs.
Fourteen tools, built around the models people actually come looking for: **Nano Banana Pro** (gemini-3-pro-image) and **Nano Banana 2** for images, **Veo 3.1** for video with synchronised audio, **Gemini 4 Argon** for chat and **Gemini 3.1 Pro** for deep research, both with Google Search grounding. Everything previews inline in Claude Desktop through MCP Apps rather than landing as a file path you have to go and open.
One npx command. That's it.
New here? The full user guide walks through every tool, the free-tier gotcha, and what to do when something breaks.
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> **Quick Navigation**
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> What it makes | Get started | What it does | Image output | Configuration | Tools | Models | Requirements
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What it makes
Everything below came out of the tools in this repo, unretouched, on the afternoon I wrote this. Prompts are in the captions so you can judge for yourself.
**Image generation with search grounding.** One generate_image call with use_search=true. Gemini looked up the actual Met Office forecast for the week, then drew it. The dates and temperatures are real (well, as real as a forecast gets).
*Prompt: "A polished editorial infographic poster: London weather, this week. Use real forecast data from search for the next 5 days..." - gemini-3-pro-image, 16:9, 2K.*
**Text that's actually spelled correctly.** This is the thing Nano Banana Pro does that the previous generation of image models couldn't. Every label here is straight out of the model.
*Prompt: "A clean, magazine-quality infographic titled How an MCP tool call works, with four numbered steps..." - gemini-3-pro-image.*
**Generate, then edit.** Left is generate_image. Right is edit_image on that file with one sentence of instructions: change the track to Monza in daylight, swap the rim lighting for window light, make the pedals red. Same cockpit, same camera angle.
| generate_image | edit_image |
|:---:|:---:|
| | |
**Image to video with Veo 3.1.** The night-time cockpit above, passed to generate_video as firstFrameImage. Eight seconds at 1080p with generated audio (engine note, tyre hiss) - the GIF below is silent and squashed for GitHub, the real file is a proper MP4.
**SVG that you can actually use.** Not a picture of a diagram - real vector markup you can drop into a page, edit by hand or commit to a repo. Both of these are the raw .svg files the tool wrote to disk.
| generate_svg style=technical | generate_svg style=data-viz |
|:---:|:---:|
| | |
**A landing page from a paragraph.** generate_landing_page with a brief, a company name and a brand colour. Self-contained HTML, inline CSS, the little chart in the hero is animated SVG. Screenshot of the file opened in Chrome, nothing else touched.
**And the fast one.** Nano Banana 2 (gemini-3.1-flash-image) for when you want volume rather than 4K. This took about ten seconds.
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Get started in two minutes
**Step 1: Get a Gemini API key**
Go to Google AI Studio and create one.
A word on the free tier, because the defaults lean on a paid model. Google's pricing page gives Gemini 3 Flash Preview a free tier, but the flagship models are paid-only - and gemini-4-argon is the default for gemini_chat and generate_landing_page, with gemini-3.1-pro-preview the default for gemini_deep_research (synthesis) and analyze_image. On a free key those calls will fail unless you point them at a free model: set GEMINI_DEFAULT_MODEL=gemini-3-flash-preview (covers chat and landing pages), GEMINI_DEEP_RESEARCH_MODEL and GEMINI_IMAGE_ANALYSIS_MODEL likewise, or pass model per call. generate_svg already defaults to gemini-3-flash-preview. Check the pricing page for the other models before relying on them - Google changes these tiers.
**Step 2: Add to your Claude Desktop config**
Config file locations:
- Windows: C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json