gemini-cli PR reveals Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.5 Flash Lite ahead of GA launch
DavidAPierce · ghdev · 2026-09-22
A P1-labeled PR in google-gemini/gemini-cli adds support for Gemini 3.8 Flash (gemini-3.8-flash) and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite (gemini-3.5-flash-lite) as the latest GA models, demoting gemini-3.5-flash and gemini-3.1-flash-lite to base tiers.
Key changes:
- New experiment flags LATESTFLASHGALAUNCHED and LATESTFLASHLITEGALAUNCHED; non-experiment auth types (USEGEMINI, USEVERTEXAI, GATEWAY) bypass gating for immediate access.
- Restructured model hierarchy constants, keeping gemini-3-flash as legacy with backward-compatible aliases.
- Updates to quota aggregation, auto-routing fallback chains, model picker UI, chat compression mappings, and settings schemas.
The PR effectively confirms Google is about to GA its next-generation Flash model lineup.
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