Gemini can't find a 'replace' or 'write_file' tools

[aalbaali]

I'm prompting Gemini to modify a file, and it attempts to do so by using the replace or write_file tools but it fails because it find them. An example of the error is

Error executing tool replace: Tool "replace" not found in registry.

Perhaps I have an installation issue (I used the npm install -g @google/gemini-cli method).

Update: a simple prompt to repro:

$ gemini --prompt "Write a foo.py python file that prints hello world"
Error executing tool write_file: Tool "write_file" not found in registry.

[jacob314]

Please file an issue with repro steps. The specific prompt that is causing the issue would be helpful. Potentially your prompt is making Gemini CLI think you want to use a specific tool that doesn't exist.

[bosacky]

I am observing the same behavior, example prompts (ran in empty folder):

source/temp/gemini ❯ gemini -p "Generate a python project for a command line tool"                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      took 4s
(node:16982) [DEP0040] DeprecationWarning: The `punycode` module is deprecated. Please use a userland alternative instead.
(Use `node --trace-deprecation ...` to show where the warning was created)
Okay, I will generate a Python command-line tool project. Here is the plan:

1.  Create a project directory named `my-cli-tool`.
2.  Set up a basic Python package structure within it.
3.  Add a `pyproject.toml` for packaging and dependency management.
4.  Include a `README.md`, `.gitignore`, and `requirements.txt`.
5.  Provide a simple "Hello, World!" example for the CLI.

I will now create the project directory and the package subdirectory. This command will create the necessary directories for the project.Error executing tool run_shell_command: Tool "run_shell_command" not found in registry.

source/temp/gemini ❯ gemini -p "Create an empty readme markdown file"
(node:17336) [DEP0040] DeprecationWarning: The `punycode` module is deprecated. Please use a userland alternative instead.
(Use `node --trace-deprecation ...` to show where the warning was created)
Error executing tool run_shell_command: Tool "run_shell_command" not found in registry.

[jacob314]

sorry you are experiencing this. if you are able to give us some simple repro steps that could help us verify when we fix the issue.

[Zlopez]

I'm experiencing the same issue with gemini

$ gemini -p "Create an empty readme markdown file"                                                                                               
Error executing tool write_file: Tool "write_file" not found in registry.
I will create an empty file named `README.md` in the current directory.Error executing tool run_shell_command: Tool "run_shell_command" not found in registry.
I am unable to create a file with the available tools. I can, however, write content to a file if you provide it.

[acoliver]

@jacob314 the core prompt, including tool directives and environment, is sent in the chat context as messages rather than system messages. Once the compress runs, they are lost or "summarized." If they were in the system message, this would happen less. Once the summarization happens, Flash, in particular, loses the more direct statements included in the prompt about tool use, and often the summarization takes the description of the tool calls to a "summarized" version. absolute_path may become "path", for instance.

(that's one failure mode)

[jacob314]

good news is this is now supported without you requiring to use --yolo mode.
I've just verified that you can now allow editing files when using the non-interactive mode of Gemini CLI.

gemini --approval-mode=auto_edit -p "Create an empty readme markdown file named foo.md"
I have created the file `foo.md`

[acoliver]

remember this one too: #2204 (reply in thread) - it happens in interactive mode eventually.

[vachan-shetty]

PR #2304 was submitted to address this issue.

The change simply passes the error message to stderr instead of throwing an error in these cases.

[SkybuckFlying]

Kinda funny, I've also seen gemini cli wanting a replace tool, and now reading it doesn't exist ? Perhaps give it a replace tool ? :)

[acoliver]

or... a much shorter prompt -- and move it to the system messages instead of a chat that will be compressed ...

[Manamama]

Always check /tools if there be there still. (if they are not, just tell it to use your shell instead).

[Zlopez]

I see this when using /tools inside gemini-cli, but I'm still getting the error I mentioned in #2204 (reply in thread)

Available Gemini CLI tools:
 
    - Edit
    - FindFiles
    - GoogleSearch
    - ReadFile
    - ReadFolder
    - ReadManyFiles
    - Save Memory
    - SearchText
    - Shell
    - WebFetch
    - WriteFile

[jacob314]

people hitting the issue were running in non-interactive mode where tools are disabled by default. To enable tools you need to run with --approval-mode=auto_edit or --aproval-mode=yolo

[Zlopez]

Thanks I just tried to run it with -y and it worked :-)

$ gemini -y -p "Create an empty readme markdown file"
Okay, I've created an empty `README.md` file.

[Zlopez]

From what I was able to find out, this is happening only when running gemini -p "something" and it doesn't happen when running gemini in interactive mode. So I assume there is something that is not loaded when running it with -p.