Create a React app with Firebase Auth and Cloud Firestore

About this guide

This development guide walks you through everything you need to do to build a high-quality React app integrated with Firebase Auth and Cloud Firestore. Check out the tasks below to get started. To save time, you can also use our boilerplate, which gives you a complete React codebase with all of these tasks done for you. Okay, let's dive in!

Tasks

• Setup your React appGet the code

  Setup a React app using npx create-react-app and routing using React Router. There are many ways you can structure your app, but a common setup is to have an App component that defines top-level routes, with each route component imported from the /pages directory. The rest of your components should be located in your /components directory. You can then run your app locally with the npm run start command.

• Create a Firebase AuthProvider and useAuth hookGet the code

  Create an AuthProvider component that fetches the current user from Firebase Auth, subscribes to changes, stores the user in state, and then makes all this data available to child components using Context.Provider. Make sure to update your App component so that AuthProvider wraps all your pages. You'll then create a useAuth hook that reads the user with useContext and returns its value. This will enable any component to call useAuthto get the current user and re-render when it changes.

• ‍Protect pages with a Firebase requireAuth HOCGet the code

  Create a requireAuth higher order component for pages that should only be viewable by authenticated users. It should call your useAuth hook internally to get the current user, show a loading indicator while waiting on the response, and then either render the page or redirect to /signin depending on whether the user is authenticated.

• ‍Merge extra user data from Cloud FirestoreGet the code

  Update the useAuth React hook to automatically fetch extra user data from the Cloud Firestore users collection and merge it into the returned user object. This makes it easy to access extra user data (think username, subscription plan, etc) without needing to manage extra queries and loading states. Make sure to return an undefined user object while the query is pending so that the user isn't considered logged in until all data is ready.

• ‍Create a custom Firebase email action handlerGet the code

  Some Firebase actions, such as password resetting and email verification, will take the user through an email flow and then have them complete the process on a page hosted by Firebase. For a better experience, you can handle this within your own app. You ll need to create a custom Firebase email action route that reads the mode and oobCode params passed by Firebase and then display the appropriate UI (such as a form for selecting a new password). Make sure to handle success/error states with and display a message to the user.

• Build your authentication UIGet the code

  Create an authentication UI using your component library of choice and Firebase Auth functions. You'll want routes for user sign-up, sign-in, forgot password, and change password. Make sure you properly validate inputs and display any errors returned by Firebase Auth. You may also want to use a library, such as React Hook Form, for managing form state.

• Link user to analytics sessionGet the code

  You can connect Google Analytics sessions to the current authenticated user with the User ID feature. This allows you to see what your users are doing across sessions and devices. You'll need to update your useAuth hook to set the user_id property whenever the user changes.

• Create Cloud Firestore query hooksGet the code

  Create React hooks that wrap your Cloud Firestore queries, such as useUser, useItem, and useItemsByUser. These hooks should subscribe to data using onSnapshot and return a query status of "success", "loading", or "error". The React Query library makes it especially easy to setup these hooks and have components re-render when data changes.

• Add Firestore rulesGet the code

  Be sure to specify your Firestore security rules so that your Firestore database is secure. For example, if you have a users collection you might ensure that the authenticated user can only update a doc if userDoc.uid matches their uid. If you have an items collection you might ensure that they can only update and fetch items where itemDoc.owner matches their uid. You'll also generally want to specify an array of fields that are writeable, as you wouldn't want a user to be able to change userDoc.planId without actually upgrading their plan.

• Build a data-driven UIGet the code

  Create a data-driven UI using your component library of choice that reads/writes data to Cloud Firestore. The specifics will depend on the type of app you're building, but we generally recommend having a useItemsByOwner hook that fetches "items" in Cloud Firestore that are owned by the current user. You can then create a component for displaying that data in a simple list or table if more columns are needed. Finally, you'll want create a flow for creating and updating items utilizing modal and form components.

Get the code

You can get the code for this guide with our React, Firebase Auth, and Cloud Firestore Boilerplate. You'll get a complete React codebase with Firebase Auth and Cloud Firestore integration, all the tasks listed above done for you, and a responsive multi-page template. It should save you about two weeks of development time.

Get the boilerplate