Firebase

This guide will show you how to integrate Auth as a custom authentication provider for Firebase and automatically create a document in the users Firestore collection when a user signs up successfully.

If you want to interact with the code for the Auth + Firebase integration that we'll be building in this guide, you can checkout the following GitHub repository, or clone it with the command below:

npx thirdweb create app --template firebase-auth

• Create a Firebase project
• Register your Firebase app
• Create and export a service account as a JSON file

To begin with, let's create a new Next.js project with the SDK configured:

npx thirdweb create --app --next --ts

From within the created directory, we need to install @thirdweb-dev/auth, firebase and firebase-admin:

npm install @thirdweb-dev/auth firebase firebase-admin

We'll use environment variables to store our Firebase configuration.

Create a .env.local file in the root of your project and add the corresponding values from your Firebase project:

NEXT_PUBLIC_API_KEY=<firebase-app-api-key>
NEXT_PUBLIC_AUTH_DOMAIN=<firebase-app-auth-domain>
NEXT_PUBLIC_PROJECT_ID=<firebase-app-project-id>
NEXT_PUBLIC_STORAGE_BUCKET=<firebase-app-storage-bucket>
NEXT_PUBLIC_MESSAGING_SENDER_ID=<firebase-app-messaging-sender-id>
NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_ID=<firebase-app-app-id>
FIREBASE_PRIVATE_KEY=<service-account-private-key>
FIREBASE_CLIENT_ID=<service-account-client-id>
FIREBASE_PRIVATE_KEY_ID=<service-account-private-key-id>
FIREBASE_CLIENT_EMAIL=<service-account-client-email>

Most of the above environment variables can be found in the settings page of your Firebase project (after adding a Web app to your project), or in the service role JSON file you created and downloaded earlier.

Create a new directory called lib and create two helper scripts to initialize Firebase in the browser and server:

• lib/initFirebase.ts
• lib/initFirebaseAdmin.ts

Now we have an easy way to access Firebase Auth and Firestore in both client and server environments!

Finally, to configure thirdweb Auth, we just need to add the NEXT_PUBLIC_THIRDWEB_AUTH_DOMAIN environment variable to the .env.local file as follows:

NEXT_PUBLIC_THIRDWEB_AUTH_DOMAIN=<thirdweb-auth-domain>

The NEXT_PUBLIC_THIRDWEB_AUTH_DOMAIN is used to prevent phishing attacks - and is usually set to the domain of your project like example.com. You can read more about it in the thirdweb Auth Documentation.

Inside the pages/_app.tsx file, configure the authConfig option:

import { ThirdwebProvider } from "@thirdweb-dev/react";
 
export default function MyApp({ Component, pageProps }) {
  return (
    <ThirdwebProvider
      clientId="your-client-id"
      authConfig={{
        // Set this to your domain to prevent signature malleability attacks.
        domain: process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_THIRDWEB_AUTH_DOMAIN,
      }}
    >
      <Component {...pageProps} />
    </ThirdwebProvider>
  );
}

The process of creating users in Firebase by authenticating them with their wallet has two steps:

• Authenticate the user with their wallet
• Create a user in Firebase with the knowledge that they own this wallet

On the homepage (pages/index.tsx), we'll allow the user to connect their wallet and then sign in with Ethereum.

import React from "react";
import {
  ConnectWallet,
  useAddress,
  useAuth,
} from "@thirdweb-dev/react";
import {
  doc,
  serverTimestamp,
  setDoc,
  getDoc,
} from "firebase/firestore";
import { signInWithCustomToken } from "firebase/auth";
import initializeFirebaseClient from "../lib/initFirebase";
 
export default function Login() {
  const thirdwebAuth = useAuth();
  const address = useAddress();
  const { auth, db } = initializeFirebaseClient();
 
  return (
    <div>
      {address ? (
        <button onClick={() => signIn()}>Sign in with Wallet</button>
      ) : (
        <ConnectWallet />
      )}
    </div>
  );
}

The signIn function:

• Makes a request to the api/auth/login endpoint to get a custom token from Firebase
• Signs the user in with the custom token
• Creates a user in Firestore with the verified user's address

// Note: This function lives inside the Login component above.
async function signIn() {
  // Use the same address as the one specified in _app.tsx.
  const payload = await thirdwebAuth?.login();
 
  try {
    // Make a request to the API with the payload.
    const res = await fetch("/api/auth/login", {
      method: "POST",
      headers: {
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
      },
      body: JSON.stringify({ payload }),
    });
 
    // Get the returned JWT token to use it to sign in with
    const { token } = await res.json();
 
    // Sign in with the token.
    const userCredential = await signInWithCustomToken(auth, token);
    // On success, we have access to the user object.
    const user = userCredential.user;
 
    // If this is a new user, we create a new document in the database.
    const usersRef = doc(db, "users", user.uid!);
    const userDoc = await getDoc(usersRef);
 
    if (!userDoc.exists()) {
      // User now has permission to update their own document outlined in the Firestore rules.
      setDoc(
        usersRef,
        { createdAt: serverTimestamp() },
        { merge: true },
      );
    }
  } catch (error) {
    console.error(error);
  }
}

In this function, you'll notice we're calling the /api/auth/login endpoint to get a custom JWT token from Firebase.

Let's take a look at that API route.

Create a folder that lives in the /pages/api/auth directory called login.ts.

This API route is responsible for:

• Verifying the payload provided by the client
• Once the payload is verified, creating a custom token for the user to sign in to Firebase.

import { NextApiRequest, NextApiResponse } from "next";
import { verifyLogin } from "@thirdweb-dev/auth/evm";
import initializeFirebaseServer from "../../../lib/initFirebaseAdmin";
 
export default async function login(
  req: NextApiRequest,
  res: NextApiResponse,
) {
  // Grab the login payload the user sent us with their request.
  const payload = req.body.payload;
 
  const { address, error } = await verifyLogin(
    process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_THIRDWEB_AUTH_DOMAIN as string,
    payload,
  );
  if (!address) {
    return res.status(401).json({ error });
  }
 
  // Initialize the Firebase Admin SDK.
  const { auth } = initializeFirebaseServer();
 
  // Generate a JWT token for the user to be used on the client-side.
  const token = await auth.createCustomToken(address);
 
  // Send the token to the client side.
  return res.status(200).json({ token });
}

You'll now be able to use Firebase Authentication to authenticate users with their wallets!

You'll likely want to add a security rule to your Firestore database that only allows users to update their documents.

rules_version = '2';
service cloud.firestore {
  match /databases/{database}/documents {
    // The wildcard expression {userId} makes the userId variable available in rules.
    match /users/{userId} {
      // Only allow users to update their own documents.
      allow create, update, delete: if request.auth != null && request.auth.uid == userId;
      // But anybody can read their profile.
      allow read;
    }
  }
}

When you click the "Sign in with Ethereum" button and successfully sign in, you'll be signed up as a user in Firebase:

And a new document will be created in your users collection in Firestore:

You can now use all the functionality of Firebase Authentication and Firestore to build your app!