Extend Cloud Firestore with Cloud Functions (2nd gen)

With Cloud Functions, you can deploy code to handle events triggered by changes in your Cloud Firestore database. This allows you to easily add server-side functionality into your app without running your own servers.

Cloud Functions (2nd gen)

Powered by Cloud Run and Eventarc, Cloud Functions for Firebase (2nd gen) gives you more powerful infrastructure, advanced control over performance and scalability, and more control of the functions runtime. For more information about 2nd gen, see Cloud Functions for Firebase (2nd gen). To see more about the 1st gen instead, see Extend Cloud Firestore with Cloud Functions.

Cloud Firestore function triggers

The Cloud Functions for Firebase SDK exports the following Cloud Firestore event triggers to let you create handlers tied to specific Cloud Firestore events:

Node.js

Event Type Trigger
onDocumentCreated Triggered when a document is written to for the first time.
onDocumentUpdated Triggered when a document already exists and has any value changed.
onDocumentDeleted Triggered when a document is deleted.
onDocumentWritten Triggered when onDocumentCreated, onDocumentUpdated or onDocumentDeleted is triggered.

Python (preview)

Event Type Trigger
on_document_created Triggered when a document is written to for the first time.
on_document_updated Triggered when a document already exists and has any value changed.
on_document_deleted Triggered when a document is deleted.
on_document_written Triggered when on_document_created, on_document_updated or on_document_deleted is triggered.

Cloud Firestore events trigger only on document changes. An update to a Cloud Firestore document where data is unchanged (a no-op write) does not generate an update or write event. It is not possible to add events to specific fields.

If you don't have a project enabled for Cloud Functions for Firebase yet, then read Get started with Cloud Functions for Firebase (2nd gen) to configure and set up your Cloud Functions for Firebase project.

Writing Cloud Firestore-triggered functions

Define a function trigger

To define a Cloud Firestore trigger, specify a document path and an event type:

Node.js

import {
  onDocumentWritten,
  onDocumentCreated,
  onDocumentUpdated,
  onDocumentDeleted,
  Change,
  FirestoreEvent
} from "firebase-functions/v2/firestore";

exports.myfunction = onDocumentWritten("my-collection/{docId}", (event) => {
   /* ... */ 
});

Python (preview)

from firebase_functions.firestore_fn import (
  on_document_created,
  on_document_deleted,
  on_document_updated,
  on_document_written,
  Event,
  Change,
  DocumentSnapshot,
)

@on_document_created(document="users/{userId}")
def myfunction(event: Event[DocumentSnapshot]) -> None:

Document paths can reference either a specific document or a wildcard pattern.

Specify a single document

If you want to trigger an event for any change to a specific document then you can use the following function.

Node.js

import {
  onDocumentWritten,
  Change,
  FirestoreEvent
} from "firebase-functions/v2/firestore";

exports.myfunction = onDocumentWritten("users/marie", (event) => {
  // Your code here
});

Python (preview)

from firebase_functions.firestore_fn import (
  on_document_written,
  Event,
  Change,
  DocumentSnapshot,
)

@on_document_written(document="users/marie")
def myfunction(event: Event[Change[DocumentSnapshot]]) -> None:

Specify a group of documents using wildcards

If you want to attach a trigger to a group of documents, such as any document in a certain collection, then use a {wildcard} in place of the document ID:

Node.js

import {
  onDocumentWritten,
  Change,
  FirestoreEvent
} from "firebase-functions/v2/firestore";

exports.myfunction = onDocumentWritten("users/{userId}", (event) => {
  // If we set `/users/marie` to {name: "Marie"} then
  // event.params.userId == "marie"
  // ... and ...
  // event.data.after.data() == {name: "Marie"}
});

Python (preview)

from firebase_functions.firestore_fn import (
  on_document_written,
  Event,
  Change,
  DocumentSnapshot,
)

@on_document_written(document="users/{userId}")
def myfunction(event: Event[Change[DocumentSnapshot]]) -> None:
  # If we set `/users/marie` to {name: "Marie"} then
  event.params["userId"] == "marie"  # True
  # ... and ...
  event.data.after.to_dict() == {"name": "Marie"}  # True

In this example, when any field on any document in users is changed, it matches a wildcard called userId.

If a document in users has subcollections and a field in one of those subcollections' documents is changed, the userId wildcard is not triggered.

Wildcard matches are extracted from the document path and stored into event.params. You may define as many wildcards as you like to substitute explicit collection or document IDs, for example:

Node.js

import {
  onDocumentWritten,
  Change,
  FirestoreEvent
} from "firebase-functions/v2/firestore";

exports.myfunction = onDocumentWritten("users/{userId}/{messageCollectionId}/{messageId}", (event) => {
    // If we set `/users/marie/incoming_messages/134` to {body: "Hello"} then
    // event.params.userId == "marie";
    // event.params.messageCollectionId == "incoming_messages";
    // event.params.messageId == "134";
    // ... and ...
    // event.data.after.data() == {body: "Hello"}
});

Python (preview)

from firebase_functions.firestore_fn import (
  on_document_written,
  Event,
  Change,
  DocumentSnapshot,
)

@on_document_written(document="users/{userId}/{messageCollectionId}/{messageId}")
def myfunction(event: Event[Change[DocumentSnapshot]]) -> None:
  # If we set `/users/marie/incoming_messages/134` to {body: "Hello"} then
  event.params["userId"] == "marie"  # True
  event.params["messageCollectionId"] == "incoming_messages"  # True
  event.params["messageId"] == "134"  # True
  # ... and ...
  event.data.after.to_dict() == {"body": "Hello"}

Your trigger must always point to a document, even if you're using a wildcard. For example, users/{userId}/{messageCollectionId} is not valid because {messageCollectionId} is a collection. However, users/{userId}/{messageCollectionId}/{messageId} is valid because {messageId} will always point to a document.

Event Triggers

Trigger a function when a new document is created

You can trigger a function to fire any time a new document is created in a collection. This example function triggers every time a new user profile is added:

Node.js

import {
  onDocumentCreated,
  Change,
  FirestoreEvent
} from "firebase-functions/v2/firestore";

exports.createuser = onDocumentCreated("users/{userId}", (event) => {
    // Get an object representing the document
    // e.g. {'name': 'Marie', 'age': 66}
    const snapshot = event.data;
    if (!snapshot) {
        console.log("No data associated with the event");
        return;
    }
    const data = snapshot.data();

    // access a particular field as you would any JS property
    const name = data.name;

    // perform more operations ...
});

Python (preview)

from firebase_functions.firestore_fn import (
  on_document_created,
  Event,
  DocumentSnapshot,
)

@on_document_created(document="users/{userId}")
def myfunction(event: Event[DocumentSnapshot]) -> None:
  # Get a dictionary representing the document
  # e.g. {'name': 'Marie', 'age': 66}
  new_value = event.data.to_dict()

  # Access a particular field as you would any dictionary
  name = new_value["name"]

  # Perform more operations ...

Trigger a function when a document is updated

You can also trigger a function to fire when a document is updated. This example function fires if a user changes their profile:

Node.js

import {
  onDocumentUpdated,
  Change,
  FirestoreEvent
} from "firebase-functions/v2/firestore";

exports.updateuser = onDocumentUpdated("users/{userId}", (event) => {
    // Get an object representing the document
    // e.g. {'name': 'Marie', 'age': 66}
    const newValue = event.data.after.data();

    // access a particular field as you would any JS property
    const name = newValue.name;

    // perform more operations ...
});

Python (preview)

from firebase_functions.firestore_fn import (
  on_document_updated,
  Event,
  Change,
  DocumentSnapshot,
)

@on_document_updated(document="users/{userId}")
def myfunction(event: Event[Change[DocumentSnapshot]]) -> None:
  # Get a dictionary representing the document
  # e.g. {'name': 'Marie', 'age': 66}
  new_value = event.data.after.to_dict()

  # Access a particular field as you would any dictionary
  name = new_value["name"]

  # Perform more operations ...

Trigger a function when a document is deleted

You can also trigger a function when a document is deleted. This example function fires when a user deletes their user profile:

Node.js

import {
  onDocumentDeleted,
  Change,
  FirestoreEvent
} from "firebase-functions/v2/firestore";

exports.deleteuser = onDocumentDeleted("users/{userId}", (event) => {
    // Get an object representing the document
    // e.g. {'name': 'Marie', 'age': 66}
    const snap =  event.data;
    const data =  snap.data();

    // perform more operations ...
});

Python (preview)

from firebase_functions.firestore_fn import (
  on_document_deleted,
  Event,
  DocumentSnapshot,
)

@on_document_deleted(document="users/{userId}")
def myfunction(event: Event[DocumentSnapshot|None]) -> None:
  # Perform more operations ...

Trigger a function for all changes to a document

If you don't care about the type of event being fired, you can listen for all changes in a Cloud Firestore document using the "document written" event trigger. This example function fires if a user is created, updated, or deleted:

Node.js

import {
  onDocumentWritten,
  Change,
  FirestoreEvent
} from "firebase-functions/v2/firestore";

exports.modifyuser = onDocumentWritten("users/{userId}", (event) => {
    // Get an object with the current document values.
    // If the document does not exist, it was deleted
    const document =  event.data.after.data();

    // Get an object with the previous document values
    const previousValues =  event.data.before.data();

    // perform more operations ...
});

Python (preview)

from firebase_functions.firestore_fn import (
  on_document_written,
  Event,
  Change,
  DocumentSnapshot,
)

@on_document_written(document="users/{userId}")
def myfunction(event: Event[Change[DocumentSnapshot | None]]) -> None:
  # Get an object with the current document values.
  # If the document does not exist, it was deleted.
  document = (event.data.after.to_dict()
              if event.data.after is not None else None)

  # Get an object with the previous document values.
  # If the document does not exist, it was newly created.
  previous_values = (event.data.before.to_dict()
                     if event.data.before is not None else None)

  # Perform more operations ...

Reading and Writing Data

When a function is triggered, it provides a snapshot of the data related to the event. You can use this snapshot to read from or write to the document that triggered the event, or use the Firebase Admin SDK to access other parts of your database.

Event Data

Reading Data

When a function is triggered, you might want to get data from a document that was updated, or get the data prior to update. You can get the prior data by using event.data.before, which contains the document snapshot before the update. Similarly, event.data.after contains the document snapshot state after the update.

Node.js

exports.updateuser2 = onDocumentUpdated("users/{userId}", (event) => {
    // Get an object with the current document values.
    // If the document does not exist, it was deleted
    const newValues =  event.data.after.data();

    // Get an object with the previous document values
    const previousValues =  event.data.before.data();
});

Python (preview)

@on_document_updated(document="users/{userId}")
def myfunction(event: Event[Change[DocumentSnapshot]]) -> None:
  # Get an object with the current document values.
  new_value = event.data.after.to_dict()

  # Get an object with the previous document values.
  prev_value = event.data.before.to_dict()

You can access properties as you would in any other object. Alternatively, you can use the get function to access specific fields:

Node.js

// Fetch data using standard accessors
const age = event.data.after.data().age;
const name = event.data.after.data()['name'];

// Fetch data using built in accessor
const experience = event.data.after.data.get('experience');

Python (preview)

# Get the value of a single document field.
age = event.data.after.get("age")

# Convert the document to a dictionary.
age = event.data.after.to_dict()["age"]

Writing Data

Each function invocation is associated with a specific document in your Cloud Firestore database. You can access that document in the snapshot returned to your function.

The document reference includes methods like update(), set(), and remove() so you can modify the document that triggered the function.

Node.js

import { onDocumentUpdated } from "firebase-functions/v2/firestore";

exports.countnamechanges = onDocumentUpdated('users/{userId}', (event) => {
  // Retrieve the current and previous value
  const data = event.data.after.data();
  const previousData = event.data.before.data();

  // We'll only update if the name has changed.
  // This is crucial to prevent infinite loops.
  if (data.name == previousData.name) {
    return null;
  }

  // Retrieve the current count of name changes
  let count = data.name_change_count;
  if (!count) {
    count = 0;
  }

  // Then return a promise of a set operation to update the count
  return data.after.ref.set({
    name_change_count: count + 1
  }, {merge: true});

});

Python (preview)

@on_document_updated(document="users/{userId}")
def myfunction(event: Event[Change[DocumentSnapshot]]) -> None:
 # Get the current and previous document values.
 new_value = event.data.after
 prev_value = event.data.before

 # We'll only update if the name has changed.
 # This is crucial to prevent infinite loops.
 if new_value.get("name") == prev_value.get("name"):
     return

 # Retrieve the current count of name changes
 count = new_value.to_dict().get("name_change_count", 0)

 # Update the count
 new_value.reference.update({"name_change_count": count + 1})
 ```

Data outside the trigger event

Cloud Functions execute in a trusted environment. They are authorized as a service account on your project, and you can perform reads and writes using the Firebase Admin SDK:

Node.js

const { initializeApp } = require('firebase-admin/app');
const { getFirestore, Timestamp, FieldValue } = require('firebase-admin/firestore');

initializeApp();
const db = getFirestore();

exports.writetofirestore = onDocumentWritten("some/doc", (event) => {
    db.doc('some/otherdoc').set({ ... });
  });

  exports.writetofirestore = onDocumentWritten('users/{userId}', (event) => {
    db.doc('some/otherdoc').set({
      // Update otherdoc
    });
  });

Python (preview)

from firebase_admin import firestore, initialize_app
import google.cloud.firestore

initialize_app()

@on_document_written(document="some/doc")
def myfunction(event: Event[Change[DocumentSnapshot | None]]) -> None:
  firestore_client: google.cloud.firestore.Client = firestore.client()
  firestore_client.document("another/doc").set({
      # ...
  })

Limitations

Note the following limitations for Cloud Firestore triggers for Cloud Functions:

  • Ordering is not guaranteed. Rapid changes can trigger function invocations in an unexpected order.
  • Events are delivered at least once, but a single event may result in multiple function invocations. Avoid depending on exactly-once mechanics, and write idempotent functions.
  • Cloud Firestore in Datastore mode requires Cloud Functions (2nd gen). Cloud Functions (1st gen) does not support Datastore mode.
  • Cloud Functions (1st gen) only works with "(default)" database and does not support Cloud Firestore named databases. Please use Cloud Functions (2nd gen) to configure events for named databases.
  • A trigger is associated with a single database. You cannot create a trigger that matches multiple databases.
  • Deleting a database does not automatically delete any triggers for that database. The trigger stops delivering events but continues to exist until you delete the trigger.
  • If a matched event exceeds the maximum request size, the event might not be delivered to Cloud Functions (1st gen).
    • Events not delivered because of request size are logged in platform logs and count towards the log usage for the project.
    • You can find these logs in the Logs Explorer with the message "Event cannot deliver to Cloud function due to size exceeding the limit for 1st gen..." of error severity. You can find the function name under the functionName field. If the receiveTimestamp field is still within an hour from now, you can infer the actual event content by reading the document in question with a snapshot before and after the timestamp.
    • To avoid such cadence, you can:
      • Migrate and upgrade to Cloud Functions (2nd gen)
      • Downsize the document
      • Delete the Cloud Functions in question
    • You can turn off the logging itself using exclusions but note that the offending events will still not be delivered.