Firebase CLI

These are the Firebase Command Line Interface (CLI) Tools. They can be used to:

• Deploy code and assets to your Firebase projects
• Run a local web server for your Firebase Hosting site
• Interact with data in your Firebase database
• Import/Export users into/from Firebase Auth

To get started with the Firebase CLI, read the full list of commands below or check out the hosting-specific CLI documentation.

Installation

To install the Firebase CLI, you first need to sign up for a Firebase account.

Then you need to install Node.js and npm. Note that installing Node.js should install npm as well.

Once npm is installed, get the Firebase CLI by running the following command:

npm install -g firebase-tools

This will provide you with the globally accessible firebase command.

Commands

The command firebase --help lists the available commands and firebase <command> --help shows more details for an individual command.

If a command is project-specific, you must either be inside a project directory with an active project alias or specify the Firebase project id with the -P <project_id> flag.

Below is a brief list of the available commands and their function:

Administrative Commands

Append --no-localhost to login (i.e., firebase login --no-localhost) to copy and paste code instead of starting a local server for authentication. A use case might be if you SSH into an instance somewhere and you need to authenticate to Firebase on that machine.

Deployment and Local Development

These commands let you deploy and interact with your Firebase services.

Auth Commands

Detailed doc is here.

Database Commands

Cloud Firestore Commands

Cloud Functions Commands

Hosting Commands

Using with CI Systems

The Firebase CLI requires a browser to complete authentication, but is fully compatible with CI and other headless environments.

1. On a machine with a browser, install the Firebase CLI.
2. Run firebase login:ci to log in and print out a new refresh token (the current CLI session will not be affected).
3. Store the output token in a secure but accessible way in your CI system.

There are two ways to use this token when running Firebase commands:

1. Store the token as the environment variable FIREBASE_TOKEN and it will automatically be utilized.
2. Run all commands with the --token <token> flag in your CI system.

The order of precedence for token loading is flag, environment variable, active project.

On any machine with the Firebase CLI, running firebase logout --token <token> will immediately revoke access for the specified token.

Using as a Module

The Firebase CLI can also be used programmatically as a standard Node module. This can only be done on your machine, and cannot be done within Cloud Functions. Each command is exposed as a function that takes an options object and returns a Promise. For example:

var client = require('firebase-tools');
client.list().then(function(data) {
  console.log(data);
}).catch(function(err) {
  // handle error
});
 
client.deploy({
  project: 'myfirebase',
  token: process.env.FIREBASE_TOKEN,
  force: true,
  cwd: '/path/to/project/folder'
}).then(function() {
  console.log('Rules have been deployed!')
}).catch(function(err) {
  // handle error
});