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Ashutosh Dubey
Ashutosh Dubey

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Connecting React App to firebase

Create React App

Open your terminal and go to the directory or location where you want to create the app. Run this command

npx create-react-app firebasetut

Go into the app directory by command

cd firebasetut

Install firebase module

Run this command in your terminal to install firebase module

npm i firebase

It will take some time to install. After it get install check your package.json file and in the dependencies section you will find Firebase with all other dependencies.

Create app in Firebase console

Go to firebase console
Give name of your first project and than click continue.

Firebase Console Step 1

Disable Google analytics and than click on create project. (It's optional if you want to keep it enable than keep it enable and create project). It will take sometime to create project. Just wait and you will see the another screen.

Firebase Console Step 2

Register you app

Click on the web symbol to register your app for web.

App Register

Than give your app a name and register it. After it get registered you will see the configuration code for your app copy that code. So that we can use it in our react app.

App SDK

Adding Configuration code to react app

Open any code editor. I'm using vscode. You can clone this repository to start the project.

In your src folder create new file name firebase-config.js
After creating this file. File structure of your app will look like this.
File Structure

Paste that configuration code which we copied from the firebase console after registering our app. And very important add the export before const app. So that we can import that app variable in other file.
Firebase Config Code

Your React App is connected to firebase

Additional

If you want you can store the configuration file apikey and other variable values in .env file(It's a good practice to follow before making your code public). Create config.env file in firebasetut folder(in main root folder).
Config.env file

And make variable like shown in image. If you are creating any variable in .env file of react app you have to follow this convention REACT_APP_VARIABLENAME
After you have done adding all the values in config.env file. Change your firebase-config.js file code. Instead of value write this variable which you have created in config.env file.
Firebase Config File

Finally we have done connecting our react app to Firebase and can make our code public.

Top comments (3)

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iamludal profile image
Ludal 🚀

Even if you put your variables in a .env file, they eventually become public since React is client side. So, how is this secure ? Is it dangerous to expose our Firebase API key ? (I've never used Firebase)

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dubeyji profile image
Ashutosh Dubey

It's not dangerous to expose your Firebase api key. It only identifies your project with google server. And for more insight on environment variable you can check this article
create-react-app.dev/docs/adding-c...

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iamludal profile image
Ludal 🚀

Thanks for your reply! 🙌