Hermoso is a marketing MCP server: 850+ tools over one OAuth’d endpoint that let an agent research the ads already running in a market, generate finished image and video ads, publish them, and build the paid campaigns behind them. Gemini CLI reaches all of it through one connection. This page is about one slice of that — what Gemini CLI can actually do on X, and what X will not let it do.
Connect Hermoso to Gemini CLI
- Install the extension.
It installs the latest release of Hermoso’s public repository: five skills (research, ad-from-brand, generate, product-photoshoot and marketing) plus agemini extensions install https://github.com/hermoso-ai/hermosoGEMINI.mdcontext file. The skills run thehermosocommand throughnpx, so nothing is added to Gemini CLI’s tool list and nothing costs context until a command runs.gemini extensions listshows them under Agent skills. - Sign in once.
It opens a browser sign-in and stores an owner-only credential innpx -y hermoso auth login~/.hermoso/config.json. Gemini CLI can run it for you the first time it needs Hermoso. No browser on that machine? Create a key under MCP & CLI → Terminal & API keys and runnpx -y hermoso auth login --token hmk_…. - Optional: the MCP server as well.
Gemini CLI finds Hermoso’s authorization server when the first connection answers 401 and registers itself, so no key goes ingemini mcp add --scope user --transport http hermoso https://app.hermoso.ai/mcpsettings.json;/mcp auth hermosoinside a session runs the sign-in. The skills reach every tool without it. - Ask Gemini CLI for something. “Pull my three closest competitors’ longest-running ads and remix the best hook into a 9:16 video,” or “post this render to the channel.” The agent picks the tools; you approve the spend.
We ran the install above on 2026-09-23 against Gemini CLI 0.60.0 in a clean home directory: it pulled the current release of hermoso-ai/hermoso, and gemini extensions list reported the five skills and the context file. The extension carries no MCP server of its own, which is deliberate: a tool list is loaded into every session, and skills cost nothing until they run. Hermoso is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.
Then connect X itself, once, under Settings → Connectors in Hermoso. That is an OAuth consent screen, so it is the one step that needs a browser — everything after it is a tool call.
The X tools Gemini CLI gets
post_to_x— posts text, an image or a video with alt text, a whole thread, a reply, a quote post, or a poll — and can restrict who is allowed to reply.post_x_article— publishes a long-form Article. Write it in Markdown and the headings, lists, quotes, links, code blocks and tables all carry across.edit_x_post— rewrites a post you have already published, inside the hour X allows.schedule_post— queues it on the shared calendar.x_post_metrics— the public counts on a post.x_post_insights— advertiser-grade numbers — impressions, link clicks, profile visits, video views and completion quartiles — for the last 28 hours only.x_post_insights_historical— the same numbers over any date range, up to 25 posts at a time. This is the one for “how did last month go”.x_mentions— who is talking about the brand.delete_x_post— removes a post.
X is the only connector that costs money per call, and the numbers are published rather than hidden. Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads and Drive cost nothing per request; X charges us, so those calls bill a small number of credits each. A plain post is priced at $0.015 per request and a post containing a link at $0.200 — roughly 13× more. Deletes, reads and the alt-text metadata write each carry their own price, and insights bill per post returned. Link detection deliberately errs toward assuming a link is present, because guessing wrong the other way costs us 13×. The practical consequence: on X, one good post beats five, and your agent is quoted the price before it posts. Length is the posting account’s, not a flat 280. Hermoso reads the account’s own X subscription and sends up to 25,000 characters where Premium allows it, so a long post goes out whole rather than coming back refused, and nothing is ever truncated. That happens to be the cheap shape too: one long post is a single billed X call where the same words split across five posts are five. X Premium also unlocks two things Hermoso publishes for you: a long-form Article, written in Markdown with its headings, lists, quotes, code blocks and tables intact, and an edit to a post you have already published, inside the hour X allows.
X limits worth knowing before you automate anything
| Text | Length is the posting account’s: 280 characters ordinarily, up to 25,000 with X Premium. Hermoso reads the subscription from X, so a long post goes out whole. Nothing is ever truncated. It is enforced when the post is created or queued — refused while you are still there to fix it, rather than silently cut on the way out. |
|---|---|
| Visibility | Public only. A post on X is public the moment it exists — there is no draft and no unlisted post in the API. Protected accounts exist, but that is an account-wide setting Hermoso neither reads nor controls, not a per-post choice. |
| Carousel | Refused, by name, and for a reason that is specific rather than generic: “X has no swipeable carousel. Its API attaches up to 4 media to a post and they render as a GRID — every image visible at once, nothing to swipe to — so a numbered ‘1/6 · SWIPE’ slide deck cannot be published there as intended. Post the single strongest slide to X, or drop X from this post.” A deck that instructs the reader to swipe, published as a grid, is worse than not publishing it. |
| Which account | None — X publishes to the connected account. |
Try it in Gemini CLI
Ask for it in ordinary language — these are sentences, not a DSL:
“Turn ./notes/launch.md into one X post, or a short thread if it will not fit, with the link only in the last post, and tell me the cost first.”
That walks get_brand → generate_text → post_to_x → x_post_insights_historical. Gemini CLI asks before it runs a shell command, and the skills act through the hermoso command, so a publish shows up as a line you can read before you say yes. For MCP tools it offers once, always for that tool, or always for the server.
Gemini CLI on X: the part that bites
If you add Hermoso’s MCP server to Gemini CLI, never add it with --trust when it is going to post to X. That flag skips every confirmation for the server, and on X each post, read and delete is a billed call, with a post carrying a link priced at roughly 13 times a plain one. On a Premium account one long post is one billed call where a five-part thread is five.
Two Gemini CLI details decide how safe this is. gemini mcp add writes to the project’s .gemini/settings.json unless you pass --scope user, which is useful when one repo should always run against one brand. And never add Hermoso with --trust: it skips every confirmation for the server, including the ones in front of a publish. MCP tools arrive named mcp_hermoso_ plus the tool name, and --exclude-tools keeps any of them out entirely.
Research X before you post
There is no X ad library to search. X research here is your own account: mentions, post metrics and the historical advertiser numbers. Everything else in the research surface — Meta, Google and LinkedIn ad libraries, organic TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit and Threads — is unaffected.
The paid half
X Ads landed in August 2026, so X is now both halves. The X Ads API is a separate product on a separate host with its own OAuth 1.0a signing, which is why it arrived after the rest — and Hermoso now builds the whole promoted-post tree on it: campaign, line item (X’s name for an ad group), promoted tweet, targeting, budgets, status and reporting. An X ad promotes a post, so the creative is a post — the same one Hermoso publishes organically. The switch that arms real money refuses to run without an explicit confirmation, exactly as on the other ten platforms. One thing to know before you plan a budget: X grants Ads API access per ad account rather than per app, so there is no OAuth button for it: you add Hermoso’s X user to your ad account at business.x.com → Account access, and it appears in list_x_ads_accounts with the permission level X gave it.
What Gemini CLI cannot do on its own
An agent with a budget is only useful if the blast radius is bounded, so the fence is in the server rather than in a prompt. Every ad campaign, ad set, ad group and ad is created paused, and the status switches that arm real money refuse to run without an explicit confirmation flag. Every render is quoted first — hermoso_capabilities publishes each model’s exact credit cost before anything spends — and credits are reserved before the first provider call and settled at the exact cost afterwards, so a failed dispatch refunds rather than leaving you billed for nothing. Deletes are confirm-gated too, and every campaign tree is read back from the ad platform before your agent tells you what it built.
One step is deliberately not headless: linking an account is an OAuth consent screen, so you connect the channel once in a browser. Everything after that is a tool call.
The rest of the matrix
From Gemini CLI, post to: Facebook · Instagram · Threads · TikTok · YouTube · LinkedIn · Pinterest · Bluesky · Telegram — or see everything Gemini CLI can publish to.
Post to X from: Claude · ChatGPT · Claude Code · Cursor · Codex · Cline · OpenClaw · Grok Bot · Hermes · Perplexity · Le Chat
Frequently asked questions
Can Gemini CLI post to X?
Yes, with Hermoso's Gemini CLI extension. Run gemini extensions install https://github.com/hermoso-ai/hermoso, which adds five Hermoso skills that drive the hermoso command, then sign in once with npx -y hermoso auth login. The sign-in opens a browser and stores the credential itself, so there is no key to create and none to paste. If you also want Hermoso's tools in Gemini CLI's own list, gemini mcp add --scope user --transport http hermoso https://app.hermoso.ai/mcp adds the hosted server, which signs in with OAuth. Gemini CLI then has 850+ tools, including the ones that publish to X — and the ones that research the ads already running in your market and render the creative in the first place.
How do I connect X to Gemini CLI?
Two steps, once each. Run gemini extensions install https://github.com/hermoso-ai/hermoso, which adds five Hermoso skills that drive the hermoso command, then sign in once with npx -y hermoso auth login. The sign-in opens a browser and stores the credential itself, so there is no key to create and none to paste. If you also want Hermoso's tools in Gemini CLI's own list, gemini mcp add --scope user --transport http hermoso https://app.hermoso.ai/mcp adds the hosted server, which signs in with OAuth. Then connect X inside Hermoso under Settings → Connectors, which is an OAuth consent screen in a browser. After that Gemini CLI publishes to X as an ordinary tool call.
Can Gemini CLI post privately or as a draft to X?
No. A post on X is public the moment it exists; the API has no draft and no unlisted post. Hermoso refuses a visibility X cannot honour at the moment you ask for it, rather than quietly publishing something weaker.
Can Gemini CLI research X before it posts?
Not through an ad library — X publishes none. What Hermoso reads on X is your own account: post metrics, advertiser-grade insights over any date range, and brand mentions.
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