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Set up Google Gemini

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Aperture by Tailscale is currently in alpha.

Configure a Google Gemini provider in Aperture so your team can access Gemini models through your tailnet. This guide uses the direct Gemini API with API key authentication, which requires fewer configuration steps than Vertex AI but does not support Anthropic models.

For Vertex AI with service account authentication (which also supports Anthropic models), refer to set up a Vertex AI provider. For Vertex AI with API key authentication, refer to set up a Vertex AI Express provider.

Aperture routes requests based on the model name, not the LLM client. Any LLM client configured to use Aperture can access any provider your admin has set up. Refer to the provider compatibility reference for the full list of supported providers and API formats.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you need:

Configure the provider

Add Google Gemini as a provider in your Aperture configuration:

{
  "providers": {
    "gemini": {
      "baseurl": "https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com",
      "apikey": "<your-gemini-key>",
      "authorization": "x-goog-api-key",
      "models": ["gemini-2.5-flash", "gemini-2.5-pro"],
      "name": "Google Gemini",
      "compatibility": {
        "gemini_generate_content": true
      }
    }
  }
}

The authorization field controls how Aperture sends the API key. The x-goog-api-key value sends the key in a x-goog-api-key header, which the direct Gemini API requires. The gemini_generate_content flag tells Aperture to use the Gemini API format instead of the default OpenAI chat completions format.

Google publishes -latest aliases (such as gemini-flash-latest) that resolve to the current stable version, so you can use either specific or alias model names. For the full list of available models, refer to the Google AI documentation. Refer to the provider compatibility reference for the full list of flags.

After configuring the provider:

  1. Grant model access to the users or groups that need these models.
  2. Set up LLM clients to connect coding tools through Aperture.

Verify the provider

The best way to verify a connection to a specific model is to send a test request through the Models tab of the Aperture dashboard.

  1. Open the Aperture dashboard and select the Models tab.
  2. Find the model you want to test in the list of configured models. If the model is not listed, check your provider configuration and ensure the model name is correct.
  3. Select the Play icon to the left of the model name to send a test request. If the request succeeds, the icon changes to a green check mark. If it fails, the icon changes to a red "X".

This sends a request from your web browser to the tailnet to verify that Aperture can successfully route requests to the model through the configured provider and that your user account has the necessary permissions to access the model.