What Is GEMINI.md?
The rules file for the Gemini CLI

What goes inside a GEMINI.md

A GEMINI.md holds the same kind of thing every AI rules file holds: your stack and architecture, code conventions and style, the commands to build and test, and boundaries for what the agent should and should not touch. It is plain Markdown, so it is just headings and lists describing your project. If you are writing one, how to write Markdown covers the syntax.

Where GEMINI.md goes, and how it loads

The Gemini CLI reads GEMINI.md hierarchically. It looks for a global one in your home directory (~/.gemini/), one at your project root, and it can also pick up GEMINI.md files further up the directory tree, then combines them into a single context. That layering lets you set broad rules globally and narrow ones per project. For a repo, the file simply sits at the root.

GEMINI.md and the other rules files

Almost every AI coding tool has its own version of this file. GEMINI.md is Gemini’s:

The Gemini CLI also understands AGENTS.md, the cross-tool open format, so if you want one file most agents read, that is the safer bet. For the full map by tool, see which AI rules file your tool reads; for what to put inside, see what AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md are; and for the Cursor version, what a .cursorrules file is.

Reading and editing a GEMINI.md with NoteLoom

A GEMINI.md is plain Markdown, so reading it is just reading Markdown. NoteLoom opens your project folder in the browser and renders it in a clean reading view, and lets you edit it in the source view when you are the one writing the rules for Gemini to load.

To be clear about the boundaries: NoteLoom has no AI and does not connect to the Gemini CLI or any coding tool. It opens, renders, and saves the Markdown file locally; whether Gemini follows the rules stays between you and the CLI.

How you use it: open app.noteloom.cc in Chrome / Edge / Arc, mount your project folder, and open the GEMINI.md to read or edit it. Saved straight to your disk, no cloud, no account.