Follow up with people you met at an event using Gemini CLI and LinkedIn

The short answer

After a conference or meetup, Gemini CLI can turn your rough notes (“Priya, data infra at a logistics company, talked about Kafka costs”) into LinkedIn connection invitations with a personal note. It searches LinkedIn for each person with linkedin_search, shows you the likely match, and queues an invitation with linkedin_send_invitation. With approval mode on, which is the default, nothing is sent until you approve it in your approval queue.

Gemini CLI connects to LinkedIn through Finchreach, a remote MCP server (MCP is a standard plug that lets AI apps use outside tools). It supports remote servers with custom headers, so setup is a single command.

Why do event follow-ups slip?

You come home with a phone full of half-names, a few business cards and a notes file. Finding each person on LinkedIn, making sure it is the right Priya, and writing a note that reminds them who you are takes five minutes per person. By the time you get to it, a week has gone by and the conversation has faded.

This is a good job for a terminal agent: the input is a text file, the steps are repetitive, and the judgment calls (is this the right person, is this note right) are quick for you to make once the work is laid out.

How does Gemini CLI turn event notes into LinkedIn invitations?

1. Save your notes in a file, one person per line, with whatever you remember: name, company, role, what you talked about.
2. Ask Gemini CLI to read the file and, for each line, search LinkedIn people with linkedin_search (vertical people), using the name plus company or role as keywords.
3. It shows you a table of candidates per person, with their headline and, where the search returns it, connection degree, and marks the most likely match.
4. You confirm or correct the matches. For people it cannot find, it says so rather than guessing.
5. It drafts a note for each confirmed person, under the 300-character limit for invitation notes, referring to what you actually discussed.
6. It queues each invitation with linkedin_send_invitation. Every one returns pending_approval; you approve them in Finchreach.

If someone is already a connection, it can draft a short message instead with linkedin_send_dm, which goes through the same queue.

What prompts should I use?

Ask your assistant“Read notes/devconf-2026.md. For each person, search LinkedIn people with their name plus company. Show me a table: my note, top 3 matches (name, headline, connection degree if shown), and your best guess. Do not send anything.”

Ask your assistant“Matches confirmed except line 4: it is the second result. Draft invitation notes under 280 characters that mention where we met and the specific thing we talked about. First name only, no “I’d love to add you to my network”.”

Ask your assistant“For people who are already 1st-degree connections, draft a short message instead. Queue the invitations with linkedin_send_invitation and the messages with linkedin_send_dm, then list the action ids.”

Ask your assistant“Two days later: check the status of those action ids with linkedin_get_action and tell me which were approved and executed.”

Keep the people search in the people vertical and, if it helps, filter by network (S for second-degree) when you met someone through a mutual contact.

How do I connect Gemini CLI to LinkedIn?

1. Create a Finchreach account and connect your LinkedIn account on the Accounts page.
2. Create an API key on the API keys page and export it as FINCH_KEY.
3. Run the command below. It adds the server to the current project by default; add -s user for ~/.gemini/settings.json.
4. Start Gemini CLI and run /mcp to check that the Finchreach tools are listed.
5. See the Gemini CLI guide, the Gemini CLI integration page and the docs.

gemini mcp add --transport http --header "Authorization: Bearer $FINCH_KEY" \
  finchreach https://mcp.finchreach.com/mcp

If you edit settings.json by hand, use httpUrl for Streamable HTTP; url means the older SSE transport.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "finchreach": {
      "httpUrl": "https://mcp.finchreach.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer lk_your_key" }
    }
  }
}

Prefer not to handle a key? Leave out headers. Gemini CLI discovers Finchreach’s OAuth sign-in on its own and opens a browser so you can sign in and approve.

Source: Gemini CLI MCP docs, as of October 2026. A third-party report we could not verify says Gemini CLI stopped serving consumer AI Pro and Ultra accounts in June 2026; if sign-in fails, check Google’s current guidance. The Gemini app can connect too, as a custom app with OAuth sign-in; see the Gemini post.

What makes a good invitation note after an event?

• Where you met, in a few words: “DevConf, the Kafka cost talk”.
• One specific detail from the conversation.
• A light next step only if one was agreed: “sending the benchmark we discussed”.
• No pitch. An invitation is not a sales message.
• Only people you actually spoke to. Speaker lists and attendee lists are not your notes.

Can sending LinkedIn invitations through an agent get my account restricted?

Automating a personal LinkedIn account carries risk under LinkedIn’s User Agreement. Finchreach’s approval queue and a human pace lower that risk; they do not remove it.

Invitations deserve extra care: LinkedIn limits how many invitations an account can send, and invitations to strangers are exactly the activity worth keeping modest. Send them to people who will recognize you, in the numbers you met at the event, not to a scraped list.

Frequently asked questions

Can I withdraw an invitation through Gemini CLI? Not through Finchreach today; withdraw it in LinkedIn.

Can it read business card photos? Gemini CLI may be able to read an image file you give it, but Finchreach only handles the LinkedIn side. Check the extracted names before searching.

What happens when someone accepts? You will see it in your notifications. Gemini CLI can read them with linkedin_get_notifications and help you draft a follow-up message.

What about invitations I receive at the event? Listing and accepting received invitations through Finchreach is coming soon; for now, accept them in LinkedIn, then Gemini CLI can draft a welcome DM. Background: what a LinkedIn MCP server is.