Firebase Setup

Firebase is Google’s mobile platform — it provides analytics, authentication, database, storage, and crash reporting in one place. It’s one of the most common backends for Flutter apps.

Note

Firebase is not built into Primio as a native integration. Instead, you ask the AI to write the integration code — it adds the Firebase Flutter packages, configures them with your credentials, and wires everything to your app. You set up Firebase separately and provide your configuration to Primio through the chat.

Firebase Analytics (quick start)

Analytics is the simplest Firebase service to set up and a good starting point. Once you have the base configuration in place, adding other Firebase services is much easier.

1. Create a Firebase project

   Go to console.firebase.google.com and create a new project. You can disable Google Analytics during setup and add it later — it doesn’t matter either way.

2. Add an Android app

   In your Firebase project, click “Add app” and select Android. Use your app’s package name from Primio project settings (Workspace → Project Settings).

3. Download google-services.json

   Firebase generates this configuration file after you register your app. Download it — you’ll paste its contents into Primio.

4. Ask Primio to add Firebase Analytics

   In the chat, ask the AI to integrate Firebase Analytics with basic event tracking, and paste the contents of your google-services.json into the same message. Send it and let the AI configure everything.

Extending to other Firebase services

After analytics is working, you can ask Primio to add more Firebase services one at a time. Each service shares the same google-services.json configuration, so no additional Firebase setup is needed.

Authentication:

• “Add Firebase Authentication with Google Sign-In”
• “Add Firebase Authentication with email and password”

Tip

Google Sign-In (and some other Firebase features) need your app’s Android signing certificate fingerprints. In Primio, open Workspace → Project Settings and click Android fingerprints next to the Package name field to copy your SHA-1 and SHA-256 values, then add them to your Android app in the Firebase Console.

Database (Firestore):

• “Add Firestore to read and write user data”
• “Connect to a Firestore collection called ‘recipes’ with fields: title, description, imageUrl, userId, createdAt”

Note: Create your Firestore collections and security rules in the Firebase Console. Then ask Primio to write the code that connects your app to those collections.

Storage:

• “Add Firebase Storage for image uploads”
• “Let users upload a profile photo to Firebase Storage”

Crash reporting:

• “Add Firebase Crashlytics for crash reporting”

Tips for success

Set up one service at a time. Adding Firebase Auth, Firestore, and Storage all in one prompt is likely to cause issues. Add one, test it in the Live Preview, then move on to the next.

Test each integration before adding the next. If something breaks, it’s much easier to debug when you’ve only changed one thing. Use Rollback if an integration doesn’t work as expected.

The google-services.json file is shared. You only download it once. All Firebase services in your app use the same configuration file.

Tip

Firebase has a generous free tier (Spark plan) that covers most small-to-medium apps. You only need to upgrade to the Blaze plan if you exceed the free usage limits — and even then, the pay-as-you-go pricing is reasonable for most apps.

Next steps

Supabase Setup

Supabase is an open-source alternative to Firebase with a PostgreSQL database.

Prompting fundamentals

Write effective prompts to get better results when asking for integrations.