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Gemini Backend

Google Gemini Flash API. The default and recommended backend.

Setup

Option 1: API key (simplest)

  1. Get a free API key at aistudio.google.com/apikey
  2. Run eyeroll init and paste the key, or set it directly:
export GEMINI_API_KEY=your-key-here

Option 2: Service account (for teams / CI)

For automated or team use, eyeroll supports Google service account credentials:

export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=/path/to/credentials.json
export GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT=your-project-id
export GOOGLE_CLOUD_LOCATION=us-central1   # optional, defaults to us-central1

eyeroll also checks these paths automatically:

  • ~/.eyeroll/credentials.json
  • ~/credentials.json
  • ./credentials.json

You can also configure this via eyeroll init -- it will ask whether you want to use an API key or a credentials.json file.

Service account auth uses Vertex AI under the hood.

Capabilities

Feature Supported
Direct video upload Yes -- File API up to 2GB (API key) or 20MB inline (service account)
Frame-by-frame analysis Yes (fallback for videos exceeding limits)
Audio transcription Yes (native)
Text generation Yes
Preflight health check Yes (verifies model access)

Model

Default model: gemini-2.0-flash

Override with the --model flag:

eyeroll watch video.mp4 --model gemini-2.0-flash

Direct video upload

With an API key, eyeroll uses the Gemini File API to upload videos up to 2GB. The model receives the full video in a single request, producing better results than frame-by-frame because it sees motion, transitions, and timing.

With a service account (Vertex AI), videos are sent as inline bytes with a 20MB limit. Videos exceeding this fall back to frame-by-frame automatically.

For videos exceeding either limit, eyeroll falls back to frame-by-frame analysis.

Cost

Gemini Flash is one of the cheapest vision APIs available. A typical 1-minute video costs approximately $0.15, depending on frame count and video length.

Free tier

Gemini API has a generous free tier. For occasional use, you may not need to pay at all.

Install

pip install eyeroll[gemini]

This installs the google-genai SDK.