Google's Gemini CLI can run on Android. Getting it there, though, takes more than a single npm install.
A developer guide published this week walks through the process of installing the open-source Gemini command-line tool on Termux, the popular Android terminal emulator, and specifically how to clear the native build errors that kill most attempts before they finish.
The underlying problem is familiar to anyone who has tried running Node.js tools with compiled dependencies on ARM Android. Termux provides a Linux-like shell, but node-gyp — which handles C/C++ compilation during package installation — needs some coaxing to work in that environment. Gemini CLI carries enough dependencies that several of them trip over this during a standard install.
The fix isn't complicated, but it isn't obvious either. The guide has users install build tools through Termux's pkg manager first, then set a handful of environment variables before running the install. That's enough to get through the compilation step. The guide ends with a working CLI session running on-device, including code generation and basic file operations.
For developers without a laptop handy, that matters. Google, Anthropic, and others have designed their CLI agents primarily for desktop Linux and macOS. ARM Android is largely an afterthought in the official documentation. Individual guides like this one are filling the gap — which says something about where demand is, even if it doesn't say much about where official support is going.