Context URL Supported on Gemini Pro 3 Preview?

Gemini API
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1

Hi,

I’m attempting to try out the structured responses + context url features for gemini-3-pro-preview announced here: New Gemini API updates for Gemini 3 - Google Developers Blog

It says context url is supported, but when attempt to use it with the go sdk, the response only includes “groundingMetadata”.

Here’s how I’m using it (buildSystemInstruction(ticker) returns an instruction that tells the system to visit a set of 5 or so pages):

	prompt := fmt.Sprintf("Analyze the following document text:\n\n---\n%s", text)
	contents := genai.Text(prompt)

	systemContent := &genai.Content{
		Parts: []*genai.Part{
			{Text: buildSystemInstruction(ticker)},
		},
		Role: "system",
	}

	tools := []*genai.Tool{
		{
			URLContext:   &genai.URLContext{},
			GoogleSearch: &genai.GoogleSearch{},
		},
	}

	resp, err := client.Models.GenerateContent(ctx, modelName, contents, &genai.GenerateContentConfig{
		SystemInstruction: systemContent,
		ResponseMIMEType:  "application/json",
		ResponseSchema:    getResponseSchema(),
		Tools:             tools,
	})
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("gemini API call failed: %w", err)
	}

	fmt.Println(resp.Candidates[0].URLContextMetadata)
	fmt.Println(resp.Candidates[0].GroundingMetadata)

If I look at the logs in Google AI Studio, the tool is clearly listed:

  "tools": [
    {
      "googleSearch": {},
      "urlContext": {}
    }
  ]

But Candidates[0].URLContextMetadata is nil and the logs clearly show that it is not used, while “Search grounding” is since Candidates[0].GroundingMetadata has the data from the searches.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue?

Is it actually supported using this model? It’s not in the list here: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/url-context#supported-models

Thanks,
Shane

3

No one? Maybe it just me? Anyone have any examples?

5

Could the URLs you are generating potentially conflict with any of the Context URL limitations outlined in the documentation?

6

They are direct links to PDFs, or simple text/html pages without paywalls. I’ve also tried just a single, simple (but relevant to the other context) page containing text/html content with no luck.

8

Simplified repro here:


package main

import (
	"context"
	"encoding/json"
	"flag"
	"fmt"
	"log"

	"google.golang.org/genai"
)

var (
	modelName    = flag.String("model", "gemini-3-pro-preview", "Gemini model to use for analysis (e.g., 'gemini-2.5-flash', 'gemini-3-pro-preview')")
	geminiAPIKey = flag.String("gemini-key", "", "Gemini API Key for generating AI summaries")
)

type AIAnalysis struct {
	Summary     string   `json:"summary"`
	Ingredients []string `json:"ingredients"`
}

func main() {
	flag.Parse()

	if *geminiAPIKey == "" {
		log.Fatal("gemini API key is required")
	}

	ctx := context.Background()
	client, err := genai.NewClient(ctx, &genai.ClientConfig{
		APIKey:  *geminiAPIKey,
		Backend: genai.BackendGeminiAPI,
	})
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatalf("failed to create gemini client: %s", err)
	}

	recipeURL := "https://downshiftology.com/recipes/shakshuka"

	contents := genai.Text(
		fmt.Sprintf("Analyze the receipt at %s and provide a summary and a list of ingredients.", recipeURL),
	)

	tools := []*genai.Tool{
		{
			URLContext:   &genai.URLContext{},
			GoogleSearch: &genai.GoogleSearch{},
		},
	}

	resp, err := client.Models.GenerateContent(ctx, *modelName, contents, &genai.GenerateContentConfig{
		ResponseMIMEType: "application/json",
		ResponseSchema:   getResponseSchema(),
		Tools:            tools,
	})
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatalf("gemini API call failed: %s", err)
	}

	respText := resp.Text()

	var analysis AIAnalysis
	if err := json.Unmarshal([]byte(respText), &analysis); err != nil {
		log.Fatalf("failed to unmarshal gemini JSON response: %s. Raw text: %s", err, respText)
	}

	fmt.Printf("Summary: %s\nIngredients: %v\n", analysis.Summary, analysis.Ingredients)
}

func getResponseSchema() *genai.Schema {
	schema := &genai.Schema{
		Type: genai.TypeObject,
		Properties: map[string]*genai.Schema{
			"summary":     {Type: genai.TypeString},
			"ingredients": {Type: genai.TypeArray, Items: &genai.Schema{Type: genai.TypeString}},
		},
	}

	return schema
}
10

Hi @shane_hull , sorry for the inconvenience. URL context is supported in the Gemini3 Pro preview model official link. Please let me know if you encounter any issues, and I will resolve them.

12

@Sivasankaran_R if you look at my repro above, it still doesn’t appear to use the URL context tool.

14

I’ve reproduced the code on my end, and it shows the context URL and status

image
image1982×214 38.9 KB

15

Oh you’re right, it does appear to work, it’s just not displayed the tool section of the logs on ai studio.

My other example with a much larger system instruction and a list of 10+ URLs does not work, but maybe that’s a limitation.

17

There may be some limitations. For additional details, please refer to the following link