Google · Terminal agent

Gemini CLI + Motion

Google's open-source terminal agent, which reads MCP servers from a settings file in your home directory. Point it at Motion and one sentence becomes a finished animation, rendered in your own browser.

No registrationNo watermarkNo paywall

Setup

Connect Gemini CLI to Motion

One endpoint, no key and no account. This is the part that differs between clients — a different file in a different place, and half of them name the same field differently. Pairing, underneath, works the same way wherever you are, and there are two of those depending on whether you have Motion open.

MCPhttps://motion.frapea.com/mcp

1
Add the server
-s user matters: the default scope is project, so without it the server is written into ./.gemini/settings.json in whatever directory you happened to be in.
terminal
```
$ gemini mcp add -s user --transport http motion https://motion.frapea.com/mcp
```
2
Or edit the settings file
~/.gemini/settings.json, and this is exactly what the command above writes. A bare url means SSE — it is type that makes it streamable HTTP. The older httpUrl field still works and the CLI warns that it is deprecated.
~/.gemini/settings.json
```
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "motion": {
      "url": "https://motion.frapea.com/mcp",
      "type": "http"
    }
  }
}
```

Then, the same for every client

Pair the session with Gemini CLI

Two ways in, and the only thing that decides between them is whether you have a Motion tab open right now. Neither needs a key or an account.

If Motion is already open

Carry the code to your agent

1Click Connect MCP, top right. The panel shows a line beginning Connect me to Motion with code, with eight characters like K7M4-P2Q9.
2Paste that whole line into your agent — the sentence, not just the code. It is worded so the agent knows which tool to call and what to pass it.
3Good for ten minutes, and once. The code stops working the moment it is spent.

Open Motion

If it is not

Let the agent start without you

1Say start a Motion session for me. Worded so it does not collide with the line above — that one carries a code, and an agent given the same words without one will try it, fail, and have to back out.
2It can compose immediately — you do not need the tab to exist yet. Open the link when you want to watch, or when it asks you to.
3Anything that has to SEE the result, or touch your photos, waits for that tab. The agent knows to wait rather than to nag.

Then say what you want in one sentence. The frames appear in the tab while you keep working wherever you were.

When it doesn’t take

Two things go wrong, and it is almost always one of them

It worked once and then stoppedgemini mcp add defaults to --scope project, so it wrote ./.gemini/settings.json in whatever directory you were in. Add it again with -s user.

A deprecation warning about httpUrlOlder guides — Google's own included — still show httpUrl. It works and warns. url with type: "http" is the current shape.

Neither of those? The endpoint answers a plain tools/list over POST. If that comes back, the server is fine and the problem is in the config — paste this page into Gemini CLI and let it work out which line.

What it gets you

Why this pairing, and not just any of them

The pairing with the least to pay for: a generous free agent tier driving a tool with no account and no render bill.

A large context window suits briefs with a lot of source material — twenty photos, a long transcript, a spreadsheet of figures.
The generous free tier and Motion's absence of a bill mean the whole loop costs nothing to try.
/mcp inside the CLI lists every connected server and its tools, so you can see exactly what Motion handed over before you ask for anything.

What you just handed it

16 tools, and one of them is looking at the result

Gemini CLI now has the whole set: it writes the composition as code rather than filling in a template, renders real frames and checks them, and never has to receive your footage to know what is in it.

All 16 tools Gemini CLI can call

What comes back

One sentence to final animation

Each of these was a single line said to an agent, rendered by the same runtime Gemini CLI would be driving. They change as you read — point at one to play it.