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Add Firebase to your JavaScript project

Follow this guide to use the Firebase JavaScript SDK in your web app or as a client for end-user access, for example, in a Node.js desktop or IoT application.

Before you begin

  • Install your preferred editor or IDE.

  • Open your JavaScript project (web or Node.js).

  • Sign into Firebase using your Google account.

If you don't already have a JavaScript project, you can download one of our quickstart samples to try out Firebase.

Step 1: Create a Firebase project

Before you can add Firebase to your JavaScript app, you need to create a Firebase project to connect to your app.

Visit Understand Firebase Projects to learn more about Firebase projects and best practices for adding apps to projects.

Step 2: Register your app

After you have a Firebase project, you can add your web app to it.

Visit Understand Firebase Projects to learn more about best practices and considerations for adding apps to a Firebase project.

  1. In the Firebase console's project overview page, click the Web icon (code) to launch the setup workflow.

    If you've already added an app to your Firebase project, click Add app to display the platform options.

  2. Enter your app's nickname.

    The nickname is an internal, convenience identifier and is only visible to you in the Firebase console.

  3. (Optional) Set up Firebase Hosting for your web app.

    • You can set up Firebase Hosting now or later. You can also link your Firebase Web App to a Hosting site at any time in your Project settings.

    • If you choose to set up Hosting up now, select a site from the dropdown list to link to your Firebase Web App.

      • This list displays your project's default Hosting site and any other sites that you've set up in your project.

      • Any site that you've already linked to a Firebase Web App is unavailable for additional linking. Each Hosting site can only be linked to a single Firebase Web App.

  4. Click Register app.

Step 3: Add Firebase SDKs and initialize Firebase

You can add any of the supported Firebase products to your app.

How you add Firebase SDKs to your app depends on whether you've chosen to use Firebase Hosting for your app, what tooling you're using with your app (like a bundler), or if you're configuring a Node.js app.

From Hosting URLs

When you use Firebase Hosting, you can configure your app to load the Firebase JavaScript SDK libraries dynamically from reserved URLs. Learn more about adding SDKs via reserved Hosting URLs.

With this setup option, after you deploy to Firebase, your app automatically pulls the Firebase configuration object from the Firebase project to which you've deployed. You can deploy the same codebase to multiple Firebase projects, but you don't have to track the Firebase configuration that you're using for firebase.initializeApp().

This setup option also works for testing your web app locally.

  1. To include only specific Firebase products (for example, Authentication and Cloud Firestore), add the following scripts to the bottom of your <body> tag, but before you use any Firebase services:

    <body>
  <!-- Insert these scripts at the bottom of the HTML, but before you use any Firebase services -->

  <!-- Firebase App (the core Firebase SDK) is always required and must be listed first -->
  <script src="/__/firebase/6.6.0/firebase-app.js"></script>

  <!-- Add Firebase products that you want to use -->
  <script src="/__/firebase/6.6.0/firebase-auth.js"></script>
  <script src="/__/firebase/6.6.0/firebase-firestore.js"></script>
</body>


  2. Initialize Firebase in your app (no need to include your Firebase config object when using reserved Hosting URLs):

    <body>
  <!-- Previously loaded Firebase SDKs -->

  <!-- Initialize Firebase -->
  <script src="/__/firebase/init.js"></script>
</body>

From the CDN

You can configure partial import of the Firebase JavaScript SDK and only load the Firebase products that you need. Firebase stores each library of the Firebase JavaScript SDK on our global CDN (content delivery network).

  1. To include only specific Firebase products (for example, Authentication and Cloud Firestore), add the following scripts to the bottom of your <body> tag, but before you use any Firebase services:

    <body>
  <!-- Insert these scripts at the bottom of the HTML, but before you use any Firebase services -->

  <!-- Firebase App (the core Firebase SDK) is always required and must be listed first -->
  <script src="https://www.gstatic.com/firebasejs/6.6.0/firebase-app.js"></script>

  <!-- Add Firebase products that you want to use -->
  <script src="https://www.gstatic.com/firebasejs/6.6.0/firebase-auth.js"></script>
  <script src="https://www.gstatic.com/firebasejs/6.6.0/firebase-firestore.js"></script>
</body>


  2. Initialize Firebase in your app:

    <body>
  <!-- Previously loaded Firebase SDKs -->

  <script>
    // TODO: Replace the following with your app's Firebase project configuration
    var firebaseConfig = {
      // ...
    };

    // Initialize Firebase
    firebase.initializeApp(firebaseConfig);
  </script>
</body>

Using module bundlers

You can configure partial import of the Firebase JavaScript SDK and only load the Firebase products that you need. If you're using a bundler (like Browserify or webpack), you can import individual Firebase products when you need them.

  1. Install the Firebase JavaScript SDK:

    1. If you don't already have a package.json file, create one by running the following command from the root of your JavaScript project:

      npm init

    2. Install the firebase npm package and save it to your package.json file by running:

      npm install --save firebase

  2. To include only specific Firebase products (like Authentication and Cloud Firestore), import Firebase modules:

    // Firebase App (the core Firebase SDK) is always required and must be listed first
import * as firebase from "firebase/app";

// Add the Firebase products that you want to use
import "firebase/auth";
import "firebase/firestore";

  3. Initialize Firebase in your app:

    // TODO: Replace the following with your app's Firebase project configuration
const firebaseConfig = {
  // ...
};

// Initialize Firebase
firebase.initializeApp(firebaseConfig);

Node.js apps

  1. Install the Firebase JavaScript SDK:

    1. If you don't already have a package.json file, create one by running the following command from the root of your JavaScript project:

      npm init

    2. Install the firebase npm package and save it to your package.json file by running:

      npm install --save firebase

  2. Use one of the following options to use the Firebase module in your app:

    • You can require modules from any JavaScript file

      To include only specific Firebase products (like Authentication and Cloud Firestore):

      // Firebase App (the core Firebase SDK) is always required and
// must be listed before other Firebase SDKs
var firebase = require("firebase/app");

// Add the Firebase products that you want to use
require("firebase/auth");
require("firebase/firestore");


    • You can use ES2015 to import modules

      To include only specific Firebase products (like Authentication and Cloud Firestore):

      // Firebase App (the core Firebase SDK) is always required and
// must be listed before other Firebase SDKs
import * as firebase from "firebase/app";

// Add the Firebase services that you want to use
import "firebase/auth";
import "firebase/firestore";

  3. Initialize Firebase in your app:

    // TODO: Replace the following with your app's Firebase project configuration
var firebaseConfig = {
  // ...
};

// Initialize Firebase
firebase.initializeApp(firebaseConfig);

Firebase config object

To initialize Firebase in your app, you need to provide your app's Firebase project configuration.

If you use reserved Hosting URLs, your Firebase config is automatically pulled from your project, so you don't need to implicitly provide the object in your code.

var firebaseConfig = {
  apiKey: "api-key",
  authDomain: "project-id.firebaseapp.com",
  databaseURL: "https://project-id.firebaseio.com",
  projectId: "project-id",
  storageBucket: "project-id.appspot.com",
  messagingSenderId: "sender-id",
  appID: "app-id",
};

At any time, you can obtain your Firebase config object.

Step 4: (Optional) Install CLI and deploy to Firebase Hosting

If you linked your Firebase Web App with a Firebase Hosting site, you can deploy your site's content and configuration now (when setting up your Web App) or anytime later.

  1. To deploy to Firebase, you'll use the Firebase CLI, a command-line tool. Install or update the CLI to its latest version.

    Run the following npm command from anywhere on your computer:

    npm install -g firebase-tools

  2. Sign into Google. Run the following command:

    firebase login

    This command connects your local machine to Firebase and grants you access to your Firebase projects.

  3. Initialize your Firebase project. Run the following command from the root of your local app directory:

    firebase init

    This initialization command:

    • Links your local app directory with Firebase.
    • Generates a firebase.json file (a required file for Firebase Hosting).

    • Prompts you to specify a public root directory which contains your public static files (HTML, CSS, JS, etc.).

      The default name for the directory that Firebase looks for is "public". You can also set the public directory later by directly modifying your firebase.json file.

  4. Deploy your content and hosting configuration to Firebase Hosting.

    Default Hosting site

    By default, every Firebase project has free subdomains on the web.app and firebaseapp.com domains (project-id.web.app and project-id.firebaseapp.com).

    1. Deploy to your site. Run the following command from your app's root directory:

      firebase deploy

    2. View your site at either of your default sites:

      • project-id.web.app
      • project-id.firebaseapp.com

    Non-default Hosting site

    Firebase projects support multiple sites (these are considered your non-default sites). You can add additional sites to your project either during the console's Web App setup workflow or from the console's Hosting page.

    1. Add your site to your firebase.json file (which was created during firebase init).

      Note that this firebase.json configuration assumes that you have separate repositories for each of your sites.

      {
  "hosting": {
    "site": "site-name>",
    "public": "public",

    // ...
  }
}

    2. Deploy to your site. Run the following command from your app's root directory:

      firebase deploy --only hosting:site-name

    3. View your site at either:

      • site-name.web.app
      • site-name.firebaseapp.com

Step 5: Access Firebase in your app

The Firebase JavaScript SDK supports the following Firebase products. Each product is optional and can be accessed from the firebase namespace.

Learn about the available methods in the Firebase JavaScript reference documentation.

Firebase product Namespace Web Node.js
Authentication firebase.auth()
Cloud Firestore firebase.firestore()
Cloud Functions for Firebase Client SDK firebase.functions()
Cloud Messaging firebase.messaging()
Cloud Storage firebase.storage()
Performance Monitoring (beta release) firebase.performance()
Realtime Database firebase.database()

Available libraries

Additional setup options

Delay loading of Firebase SDKs (from CDN)

You can delay the inclusion of the Firebase SDKs until the entire page has loaded.

  1. Add a defer flag to each script tag for the Firebase SDKs, then defer the initialization of Firebase using a second script, for example:

    <script defer src="https://www.gstatic.com/firebasejs/6.6.0/firebase-app.js"></script>

<script defer src="https://www.gstatic.com/firebasejs/6.6.0/firebase-auth.js"></script>
<script defer src="https://www.gstatic.com/firebasejs/6.6.0/firebase-firestore.js"></script>

// ...

<script defer src="./init-firebase.js"></script>

  2. Create an init-firebase.js file, then include the following in the file:

    // TODO: Replace the following with your app's Firebase project configuration
var firebaseConfig = {
  // ...
};

// Initialize Firebase
firebase.initializeApp(firebaseConfig);

Use multiple Firebase projects in a single app

In most cases, you only have to initialize Firebase in a single, default app. You can access Firebase from that app in two equivalent ways:

// Initialize Firebase with a "default" Firebase project
var defaultProject = firebase.initializeApp(firebaseConfig);

console.log(defaultProject.name);  // "[DEFAULT]"

// Option 1: Access Firebase services via the defaultProject variable
var defaultStorage = defaultProject.storage();
var defaultFirestore = defaultProject.firestore();

// Option 2: Access Firebase services using shorthand notation
defaultStorage = firebase.storage();
defaultFirestore = firebase.firestore();

Sometimes, though, you need to access multiple Firebase projects at the same time. For example, you might want to read data from the database of one Firebase project but store files in a different Firebase project. Or you might want to authenticate one project while keeping a second project unauthenticated.

The Firebase JavaScript SDK allows you to initialize and use multiple Firebase projects in a single app at the same time, with each project using its own Firebase configuration information.

// Initialize Firebase with a default Firebase project
firebase.initializeApp(firebaseConfig);

// Initialize Firebase with a second Firebase project
var otherProject = firebase.initializeApp(otherProjectFirebaseConfig, "other");

console.log(firebase.app().name);  // "[DEFAULT]"
console.log(otherProject.name);    // "otherProject"

// Use the shorthand notation to access the default project's Firebase services
var defaultStorage = firebase.storage();
var defaultFirestore = firebase.firestore();

// Use the otherProject variable to access the second project's Firebase services
var otherStorage = otherProject.storage();
var otherFirestore = otherProject.firestore();

Run a local web server for development

If you're building a web app, some parts of the Firebase JavaScript SDK require that you serve your web app from a server rather than from the local filesystem. You can use the Firebase CLI to run a local server.

If you already set up Firebase Hosting for your app, you might have already completed several of the steps below.

  1. Install or update the Firebase CLI. Run the following npm command from anywhere on your computer:

    npm install -g firebase-tools

  2. Sign into Google. Run the following command:

    firebase login

    This command connects your local machine to Firebase and grants you access to your Firebase projects.

  3. Initialize your Firebase project. Run the following command from the root of your local app directory:

    firebase init

    This initialization command:

    • Links your local app directory with Firebase.
    • Generates a firebase.json file (a required file for Firebase Hosting).

    • Prompts you to specify a public root directory which contains your public static files (HTML, CSS, JS, etc.).

      The default name for the directory that Firebase looks for is "public". You can also set the public directory later by directly modifying your firebase.json file.

  4. Start the local server for development. Run the following command from the root of your local app directory:

    firebase serve

Next steps

Learn about Firebase:

Add Firebase services to your app, like: