Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

Last week, I started working on a new side-project. It’s a standard React app partly made up of run-of-the-mill CRUD views—a perfect fit for LLM-assisted programming. I reasoned that if I could get an LLM to quickly write the boring code for me, I’d have more time to focus on the interesting problems I wanted to solve. I’ve pretty much settled on Claude Code as my coding assistant of choice, but I’d been hearing great things about Google’s Gemini 3 Pro. Despite my aversion to Google products, I decided to t