I'm honestly a bit confused by the free tier of Gemini. I've been using it with different agents (Aider, and then Crush), and I hit the rate limits FAST. Like, after maybe 5 or 6 requests it just blows up. Then I can try again quite a few times, and it hits the limit. Then eventually I guess I hit my daily limit and it just stops working until the next day.
I mean this has been enough to get my feet wet and have some fun with exploring agent-based development, no doubt, and I appreciate it, but I'm having a hard time crossing my experience with,
> generous free-of-charge quotas
as they say. It's not that generous if it stops working after 5 mins? (This morning literally a single sentence I typed into Crush resulted in some back and forth I guess it called the API a few times and it just rate limited-out. Fine, it was probably a lot of requests going on, but, but I literally gave it a single small job to do and it couldn't finish it.)
Meanwhile I seem to be able to use the Gemini web app endlessly and haven't hit any limits yet.
With Gemini CLI I blow through Pro requests in < 10 minutes and it switches to Flash. I can't trust either to be autonomous. Pro will write unit tests, get a test to 100% coverage and then delete the test. Flash will get stuck in endless loops where it replaces a string in a file, doesn't realize the string has been replaced, and keep failing to recognize that fact getting stuck in a doom loop.
Glad I didn't add an API key. I've had friends who did and ended up with $xxx in charges because the models can't think or use tools properly.
This. I have a side project that I intend to finish in vibe coding mode, but Gemini CLI has been stuck fixing build errors for an hour, after multiple attempts to correct errors or refactor code. The interfaces don't even make any sense. Time for me to go in and fix the mess myself.
I added a key rotator to my AI coder, and asked a couple of friends to make keys for me. That helped code a good chunk of http://typedai.dev when 2.5 Pro came out
I mean this has been enough to get my feet wet and have some fun with exploring agent-based development, no doubt, and I appreciate it, but I'm having a hard time crossing my experience with,
> generous free-of-charge quotas
as they say. It's not that generous if it stops working after 5 mins? (This morning literally a single sentence I typed into Crush resulted in some back and forth I guess it called the API a few times and it just rate limited-out. Fine, it was probably a lot of requests going on, but, but I literally gave it a single small job to do and it couldn't finish it.)
Meanwhile I seem to be able to use the Gemini web app endlessly and haven't hit any limits yet.