What happened?
Description
When running the Gemini CLI in a non-interactive environment, custom commands defined in .toml files are not being recognized or executed. The CLI either treats the command as a literal string or reports it as an invalid command.
Instead of expanding the command from the corresponding .toml file, the CLI either treats the custom command itself (e.g., /pr-review) as the literal prompt text or fails with an "invalid command" error. This prevents the use of reusable prompts in automated workflows, which is a primary use case for this feature.
Steps to Reproduce
- Create a custom command file
- Run the command interactively. This works as expected.
- Run the same command non-interactively. This fails.
cc @abhipatel12
What did you expect to happen?
When gemini --prompt "/hello" is executed, the CLI should find the .gemini/commands/hello.toml file, expand the prompt, and execute that prompt with Gemini CLI non-interactively.
Open to other syntax suggestions to make this work in headless mode, doesn't have to be slash commands.
Client information
N/A
Login information
N/A
Anything else we need to know?
The primary impact of this bug is on automation. The current workaround is to embed the entire multi-line prompt directly into the script. This defeats the purpose of having reusable custom commands, making workflows verbose and difficult to maintain. Enabling slash commands in non-interactive mode is critical for clean, modular, and maintainable automated workflows.
In addition, this makes it impossible to use extensions in non-interactive mode.
What happened?
Description
When running the Gemini CLI in a non-interactive environment, custom commands defined in
.tomlfiles are not being recognized or executed. The CLI either treats the command as a literal string or reports it as an invalid command.Instead of expanding the command from the corresponding
.tomlfile, the CLI either treats the custom command itself (e.g.,/pr-review) as the literal prompt text or fails with an "invalid command" error. This prevents the use of reusable prompts in automated workflows, which is a primary use case for this feature.Steps to Reproduce
cc @abhipatel12
What did you expect to happen?
When
gemini --prompt "/hello"is executed, the CLI should find the.gemini/commands/hello.tomlfile, expand the prompt, and execute that prompt with Gemini CLI non-interactively.Open to other syntax suggestions to make this work in headless mode, doesn't have to be slash commands.
Client information
N/A
Login information
N/A
Anything else we need to know?
The primary impact of this bug is on automation. The current workaround is to embed the entire multi-line prompt directly into the script. This defeats the purpose of having reusable custom commands, making workflows verbose and difficult to maintain. Enabling slash commands in non-interactive mode is critical for clean, modular, and maintainable automated workflows.
In addition, this makes it impossible to use extensions in non-interactive mode.