Gemini's Preview Image Models Shut Down on June 25 — Code Diffs and Checks From an Actual GA Migration
How I moved my image pipeline off Gemini's preview image models before the June 25 shutdown — confirming GA model IDs, Python code diffs, regression checks, and a safe cutover order.
Gemini Interactions API: Fixing What Broke When the Legacy outputs Schema Was Removed on June 6
Google removed the Gemini Interactions API legacy outputs schema on June 6, 2026. A symptom-based walkthrough of migrating to steps and the new response_format.
Reverse-Engineering Empty Gemini API Responses with finish_reason — Triage, Retry Classification, and Monitoring
An empty response.text has three distinct failure layers — candidates, prompt_feedback, and finish_reason. Production code for detecting thinking-token starvation, classifying what is worth retrying, and monitoring your empty-response rate.
A Lightweight Gemini Backend with Bun and Hono — Reclaiming the Small Tools of Indie Development
Has your Node and Express Gemini backend grown heavy with dependencies and build times? Here is how I moved one to Bun and Hono — folding streaming, rate limiting, cost caps, testing, and self-hosting into a single light runtime — along with the pitfalls I hit in production.
Why Firebase AI Logic Returns 403 When Calling Gemini from iOS — And How to Fix It
Firebase AI Logic (formerly Vertex AI in Firebase) often returns 403 PERMISSION_DENIED when calling Gemini from an iOS app. Here is how to isolate the three real causes — App Check enforcement, disabled APIs, and missing Blaze billing — based on hands-on device testing.
A Month of Refreshing App Store Promotional Text Weekly with Gemini
Notes from one month of rewriting App Store promotional text (the 170-character line above the description) weekly with the Gemini API. How I reused a slot that ships without review, what I handed to AI, what I always touched by hand, and whether it moved anything.
Empty Output but finish_reason Is MAX_TOKENS on Gemini 2.5/3: Cause and Fix
Your prompt is just a few lines, yet a low maxOutputTokens on gemini-2.5-flash returns empty text with finish_reason MAX_TOKENS. The culprit is thinking tokens. Here are three fixes with working code.
Mixing Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite for App Store Localization
An operations log from running the same wallpaper-app store copy through both Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite. Real cost gaps, where the lighter model breaks down, and how I now route by text type and locale.
Measuring the Economics of Each Gemini-Powered Feature — So You Can Keep It, Fix It, or Retire It
Gemini API costs are visible at the account level, but the profitability of an individual feature never shows up on its own. This guide shows how to tag every request, build a per-feature cost ledger, join it with revenue signals from AdMob and in-app purchases to compute contribution margin, and decide whether to keep, fix, or retire each feature — with the code I actually run.
Why Gemini API Throws 'Unsupported MIME type' and How to Fix It
The 'Unsupported MIME type' error from the Gemini API has three distinct causes: a misspelled MIME string, an octet-stream upload, and a genuinely unsupported format. Here is how to tell them apart with code that actually works.
Localizing App Store Keyword Fields with Gemini 2.5 Flash — A Month of Notes Across 40 Apps
Operational notes from a month of using Gemini 2.5 Flash to draft the 100-character App Store keyword field across 40 wallpaper apps and several locales — CJK byte counting, deduping against the title, prohibited terms, and what actually moved the needle.
Why Gemini 2.5 Pro Rejects thinkingBudget: 0 (and How to Fix It)
Setting thinkingBudget to 0 on Gemini 2.5 Pro returns a 400 INVALID_ARGUMENT error. Here is why the per-model thinking budget ranges differ, how to minimize thinking on Pro the right way, and when to switch to Flash, with Python and JavaScript examples.