Gemini CLI v0.30.0: Plan Mode Formalization, Solarized Themes, and Policy Engine Maturation

Plan Mode Gets a Formal Five-Phase Workflow

Gemini CLI v0.30.0 moves Plan Mode from an experimental construct to a structured, documented system. The release formalizes a five-phase sequential planning workflow that governs how the agent approaches complex, multi-step tasks. Rather than allowing ad-hoc exploration during a plan, the agent now follows a defined sequence: project discovery, context gathering, problem analysis, solution design, and plan generation. This structured approach produces more coherent, auditable plans and reduces the likelihood of the agent jumping to implementation details before it has adequately understood the problem space.

Skills can now be activated within Plan Mode, meaning skill-based workflows — such as code-reviewer or docs-writer — are available during the read-only research phase, not just during execution. Plan files are isolated per session, preventing plan state from leaking across unrelated conversations. The Plan Mode UI also hides write and edit operations on plan artifacts, keeping the interface focused on research and clarification.

--policy Flag: User-Defined Policy Files

Developers and power users can now supply their own policy file via the new --policy CLI flag, specifying a path to a custom JSON policy document at startup. Previously, policy configuration was restricted to workspace-level settings.json files or enterprise-administered remote settings. The --policy flag opens a third path: portable, per-invocation policy definitions that can be checked into version control, shared across a team, or injected by CI/CD pipelines.

This complements the existing admin controls introduced in v0.24.0 and gives individual developers a way to lock down or expand tool permissions for specific use cases without modifying shared configuration files.

--allowed-tools and excludeTools Are Deprecated

Two legacy mechanisms for controlling which tools the agent can invoke — the --allowed-tools CLI flag and the excludeTools setting — are officially deprecated in v0.30.0 and will be removed in a future release. Both are superseded by the Policy Engine, which provides a richer, more expressive rule system that supports conditional evaluation, shell command allowlisting, and mode-aware restrictions. Users relying on either deprecated flag should migrate to equivalent Policy Engine rules.

Solarized Dark and Solarized Light Themes

Two new color themes join the existing theme roster: Solarized Dark and Solarized Light. These follow the Solarized palette, a widely used terminal color scheme known for its carefully calibrated contrast ratios across light and dark backgrounds. Both themes are selectable from the extension themes system introduced in v0.28.0.

Ctrl-Z Process Suspension and UX Polish

Gemini CLI now supports Ctrl-Z for suspending the current process, matching standard Unix job control behavior. Users who run the CLI alongside other terminal applications can now pause a session and resume it with fg as expected. Additional UX improvements include a configurable option to hide the keyboard shortcuts hint panel (? key), a "clean UI" toggle prototype for a less cluttered interface, improved minimal-mode rendering, and a loading state indicator when new agent notifications arrive.

/commands reload and 30-Day Session Retention

A new /commands reload subcommand (also accessible as /commands refresh) allows users to reload custom TOML command definitions without restarting the CLI — useful during active development of custom commands. Session retention is now enabled by default with a 30-day maximum age, meaning past sessions persist and remain resumable via /resume for a month before automatic cleanup.