firestore-request

A lightweight library to build a request-queue model for firebase functions, leveraging firestore as the centralised request API.

Simply create requests inside of a requests collection in firestore, and trigger corresponding cloud functions to handle the request's execution.

Why?

Because GraphQL adds dependency, infrastructure, and cognitive overhead - but REST isn't descriptive or intuitive enough.

Because you want to use firestore as-per-usual for all downstream data queries, but use something powerful and flexible (firestore-request) as your single upstream mutation service. firestore-request allows your clients to use a single, consistent data API - firestore - without managing new infrastructure or new dependencies.

How

Usage is simple and straightforward, and requires no more infrastructure setup than a Firebase Functions project, and a Firebase client.

From the client

The client simply create a request object under a particular firestore collection. The client can optionally listen to the added request, to listen for status changes, or can simply attach watchers to the expected output - in this case, listen to all todos on the todos collection.

const request = {
  requestType: 'createTodo',
  payload: {
    name: 'Add firestore-request to your app!',
    dueDate: 1532410227,
    status: 'incomplete'
  }
};

firestore()
    .collection("requests")
    .doc("root")
    .collection(request.requestType)
    .add(request);

From a Functions project

The functions request handler uses firestore-request to read the request payload, and handle whatever business logic needs to be executed. If the handler returns correctly or returns a resolved promise, firestore-request will mark the request status as complete - or else it will mark it as failed.

import { functions } from 'firestore-request';

const createTodo = functions
  .request('createTodo')
  .onRequest((params, context) => {
    const { payload } = params.data();

    return admin.firestore()
      .collection('todos')
      .add(payload);
  });