Setup Firebase on iOS/Android with multiple environments

It’s pretty straightforward to install Firebase when you have only one environment. But what if you have multiple environments, such as dev, staging and production? Here’s a step-by-step guide.

Android

On Android, Firebase groups the different configurations in one file.

1. Go to the Firebase console
2. Select your project
3. Click “Add an application”, choose Android
4. Fill in the form (giving a name like Staging), click save, and close the window
5. Repeat steps 3 to 4 for all your environments
6. Download the google-services.json file
   1. Select one of the Android applications
   2. Click on “google-services.json”
7. Put google-services.json in your app folder (android/app in React-Native)
8. You might want to add google-services.json in your .gitignore

Firebase console

iOS

On iOS, there is one Firebase configuration file per environment.

1. Go to the Firebase console
2. Select your project
3. Click “Add an application”, choose iOS
4. Fill in the form (giving a name like Staging), click save
5. Download the configuration file GoogleService-Info.plist and rename it like GoogleService-Info.{APP_IDENTIFIER}.plist
Example: for tech.bam.myApp.staging, this is GoogleService-Info.tech.bam.myApp.staging.plist
6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 for all your environments
7. Put your configuration files in the root of your iOS app folder (ios in React-Native)
8. Make sure that your app identifier is injected in your .pbxproj. For example, if you’re using Fastlane, add a update_app_identifier step like:

update_app_identifier(
  xcodeproj: xcodeproj_full_path,
  plist_path: plist_full_path,
  app_identifier: ENV['APP_IDENTIFIER']
) 

9. In XCode, in Build phases, add a Select GoogleService-Info.plist build step before the Copy Bundle Resources step that contains:

cp "GoogleService-Info."$PRODUCT_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER".plist" "GoogleService-Info.plist"

10. In XCode, in Build phases, add a Clean GoogleService-Info.plist build step after the Copy Bundle Resources step that contains:

rm "GoogleService-Info.plist"

11. Make sure that the GoogleService-Info.plist is listed in the resources of the Copy Bundle Resources step

12. You might want to add GoogleService-Info.*.plist in your .gitignore

XCode