This project has been discontinued.
This package of libraries was created to assist in quick creation of API endpoints using Google Cloud HTTP Functions.
Creating one endpoint involved creating a single function with a small amount of code and reasonable defaults that used Google Datastore or Firestore as databases.
Firebase Functions allow developers to deploy a single Express app as one endpoint to handle it all.
const functions = require('firebase-functions')
const Express = require('express')
var app = new Express()
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
// .. my code here
})
// add other endpoints, middleware, etc
exports.app = functions.http.onRequest(app)It has all of the advantages of a monolith but deployable to a serverless environment:
- Express is a widely known library
- Fully portable app: if Google Functions doesn't work for you, just deploy your app to a real server
- Better support of other database libraries such as Sequelize
- Allows integration testing
The way the Firebase client handles deploys also suggests the above approach is better. Despite being able to create multiple functions, all of them will share the same code. This somewhat beats the purpose of deploying small functions with limited functionality.
During development of this library, I had to rebuild things like routing from the scratch. While I could use the routing library that Express uses, it began to indicate that it was a better approach to just build an Express app already.
Another advantage of deploying a single app function is that it can be deployed on a domain using Firebase Hosting rewrites:
// in firebase.json
"rewrites": [
{"source": "**", "function": "app"}
]You can then add a domain such as api.mydomain.com to Firebase Hosting and use the rewrite rule above to point all requests to api.mydomain.com/* to your function and it will be routed like an Express app. You can also use the original cloudfunctions.net domain if you want.