Vertex AI Skill

vertex-ai

Google Vertex AI via gcloud OAuth2. Call Gemini, Imagen, embeddings, and Model Garden models from the CLI. Use when users need generative AI, image generation, embeddings, or model inference.

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SKILL.md

Full skill instructions

Vertex AI Skill

Call Google Vertex AI models from the CLI using gcloud OAuth2 authentication.

Prerequisites

gcloud CLI installed (via flox install google-cloud-sdk or standalone)
Authenticated: gcloud auth login
Project set: gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID
Vertex AI API enabled on the project

Authentication

Vertex AI requires OAuth2, not API keys. Get a bearer token:

ACCESS_TOKEN=$(gcloud auth print-access-token)

Tokens expire after ~60 minutes. Re-run to refresh.

Core Pattern

All Vertex AI calls follow this structure:

PROJECT=$(gcloud config get project)
REGION=us-central1
ACCESS_TOKEN=$(gcloud auth print-access-token)

curl -s "https://${REGION}-aiplatform.googleapis.com/v1/projects/${PROJECT}/locations/${REGION}/publishers/google/models/${MODEL}:${METHOD}" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "$PAYLOAD"

Gemini — Text Generation

MODEL=gemini-2.0-flash
curl -s "https://${REGION}-aiplatform.googleapis.com/v1/projects/${PROJECT}/locations/${REGION}/publishers/google/models/${MODEL}:generateContent" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "contents": [{"role": "user", "parts": [{"text": "Your prompt here"}]}]
  }' | jq -r '.candidates[0].content.parts[0].text'

CRITICAL: Always include "role": "user" in contents — omitting it causes a 400 error.

Available Gemini Models

Model	Use Case
`gemini-2.0-flash`	Fast, general-purpose (recommended default)
`gemini-2.0-pro`	Complex reasoning, longer context
`gemini-1.5-pro`	1M token context window
`gemini-1.5-flash`	Fast, cost-effective

Generation Config

{
  "contents": [{"role": "user", "parts": [{"text": "prompt"}]}],
  "generationConfig": {
    "temperature": 0.7,
    "topP": 0.95,
    "topK": 40,
    "maxOutputTokens": 2048,
    "candidateCount": 1
  }
}

System Instructions

{
  "contents": [{"role": "user", "parts": [{"text": "prompt"}]}],
  "systemInstruction": {
    "parts": [{"text": "You are a helpful coding assistant."}]
  }
}

Gemini — Multimodal (Image + Text)

# Base64 encode an image
IMG_B64=$(base64 -i image.png)

curl -s "https://${REGION}-aiplatform.googleapis.com/v1/projects/${PROJECT}/locations/${REGION}/publishers/google/models/gemini-2.0-flash:generateContent" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{
    \"contents\": [{\"role\": \"user\", \"parts\": [
      {\"text\": \"Describe this image\"},
      {\"inlineData\": {\"mimeType\": \"image/png\", \"data\": \"$IMG_B64\"}}
    ]}]
  }" | jq -r '.candidates[0].content.parts[0].text'

Embeddings

curl -s "https://${REGION}-aiplatform.googleapis.com/v1/projects/${PROJECT}/locations/${REGION}/publishers/google/models/text-embedding-005:predict" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "instances": [{"content": "Text to embed"}]
  }' | jq '.predictions[0].embeddings.values[:5]'

Imagen — Image Generation

curl -s "https://${REGION}-aiplatform.googleapis.com/v1/projects/${PROJECT}/locations/${REGION}/publishers/google/models/imagen-3.0-generate-002:predict" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "instances": [{"prompt": "A cat wearing a space helmet, digital art"}],
    "parameters": {"sampleCount": 1}
  }' | jq -r '.predictions[0].bytesBase64Encoded' | base64 -d > output.png

Streaming

For streaming responses, use streamGenerateContent:

curl -s "https://${REGION}-aiplatform.googleapis.com/v1/projects/${PROJECT}/locations/${REGION}/publishers/google/models/gemini-2.0-flash:streamGenerateContent" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"contents": [{"role": "user", "parts": [{"text": "Write a haiku"}]}]}'

Multi-turn Conversation

{
  "contents": [
    {"role": "user", "parts": [{"text": "What is the capital of France?"}]},
    {"role": "model", "parts": [{"text": "Paris."}]},
    {"role": "user", "parts": [{"text": "What is its population?"}]}
  ]
}

Helper Script

For quick single-prompt calls:

vertex() {
  local model="${2:-gemini-2.0-flash}"
  local token=$(gcloud auth print-access-token)
  local project=$(gcloud config get project 2>/dev/null)
  curl -s "https://us-central1-aiplatform.googleapis.com/v1/projects/${project}/locations/us-central1/publishers/google/models/${model}:generateContent" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $token" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d "{\"contents\":[{\"role\":\"user\",\"parts\":[{\"text\":$(echo "$1" | jq -Rs .)}]}]}" \
    | jq -r '.candidates[0].content.parts[0].text'
}

# Usage: vertex "explain quantum computing" gemini-2.0-pro

Error Reference

Error	Cause	Fix
401 UNAUTHENTICATED	Token expired or API key used	`gcloud auth print-access-token`
400 "valid role: user, model"	Missing `role` field in contents	Add `"role": "user"`
403 PERMISSION_DENIED	API not enabled or no access	`gcloud services enable aiplatform.googleapis.com`
429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED	Rate limit hit	Back off and retry
404 NOT_FOUND	Wrong model name or region	Check model ID and use `us-central1`

1Password Integration

Store and retrieve credentials securely:

# If using a service account key stored in 1Password:
export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=$(op read "op://VaultName/GCP-SA-Key/credential" | base64 -d > /tmp/sa.json && echo /tmp/sa.json)
gcloud auth activate-service-account --key-file=$GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS