Add You.com to Gemini CLI

Give Gemini CLI real-time web search, content extraction, and citation-backed research through the You.com MCP Server. (Yes, Gemini’s CLI can use You.com — that’s what MCP is for.)

Quick setup

Add You.com to your Gemini CLI settings

Edit ~/.gemini/settings.json and add the You.com server under mcpServers:

1 {
2   "mcpServers": {
3     "you-com": {
4       "httpUrl": "https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=free"
5     }
6   }
7 }

Gemini CLI gotcha: Gemini CLI uses httpUrl (not url) for streamable HTTP MCP servers. This is different from Claude Code, Cursor, and VS Code.

This uses our free tier: 100 web searches per day, no signup.

Restart Gemini CLI

$ gemini

Verify the tools are loaded

Inside Gemini CLI:

$ /mcp list

You should see you-com listed with you-search available. (Upgrade to API key auth to unlock you-contents and you-research.)

Higher rate limits + full toolset

For unlimited queries and the full tool set:

1 {
2   "mcpServers": {
3     "you-com": {
4       "httpUrl": "https://api.you.com/mcp",
5       "headers": {
6         "Authorization": "Bearer YDC-YOUR-API-KEY"
7       }
8     }
9   }
10 }

Get a key at you.com/platform.

Local install (stdio)

For offline development or self-hosted use:

1 {
2   "mcpServers": {
3     "you-com": {
4       "command": "npx",
5       "args": ["-y", "@youdotcom-oss/mcp"],
6       "env": {
7         "YDC_API_KEY": "YDC-YOUR-API-KEY"
8       }
9     }
10   }
11 }

Omit YDC_API_KEY for free-tier behavior.

Quick demo

Search for the three latest changes to the Gemini API and summarize what's new.

Research the differences between Vertex AI Search and Google's general web search API, with citations.

Troubleshooting

/mcp list shows nothing — confirm you used httpUrl (not url or serverUrl). Gemini CLI silently ignores unrecognized keys.
Server connects but tools fail — Gemini CLI requires tool name allowlisting in some configs. Check ~/.gemini/settings.json for a mcpServers.you-com.includeTools field; remove it to allow all tools, or add "you-search", "you-contents", "you-research".
401 / invalid key — regenerate at you.com/platform and re-paste, watching for extra whitespace.
spawn npx ENOENT (local install only) — install Node.js 18+ and ensure npx is on your PATH.