App Hosting handles a complex series of background tasks to simplify the deployment of your app. This page describes key parts of that task flow, providing information about points where you might want to customize the flow depending on your app's needs.
Framework support
App Hosting provides no-config-needed build and deploy support for Web apps developed in these frameworks:
- Next.js 13+
- Angular 17.2+
App Hosting identifies which framework you're using by inspecting the
package-lock.json file or other lock file in your repository. If you try to
deploy a Node.js app that is missing a lock file, App Hosting will fail to
build and run your app. You can create package-lock.json by running npm
install in your root directory.
App Hosting framework adapters have two key roles:
- They parse your source code and any framework-specific config files (such as
next.config.js) in order to understand your app's configured behavior. - They run your app's build command to generate static assets and create an optimized version of your app for production.
The framework adapters build your Node.js app with npm run build, working best
with the default build scripts for each framework: next build for Next.js and
ng build for Angular. App Hosting will attempt builds with custom build
commands, but cannot dependably guarantee success.
How App Hosting repository integration works
The important connection between your GitHub repository and the App Hosting backend is handled by Developer Connect, Google Cloud's connectivity platform for external DevOps tools. During the creation of an App Hosting backend, Developer Connect's UI workflow guides you through the installation of the Firebase GitHub app. The key steps in this process are:
- You grant Developer Connect the Secret Manager Admin role. This allows the system to store credentials securely as "secrets" in Cloud Secret Manager.
- You authorize the Firebase GitHub app to access your GitHub repository.
- Developer Connect stores a dedicated GitHub authorization token in your project's secret manager repository; don't modify or delete this token.
Additionally, App Hosting integrates with the GitHub checks API to provide a check for rollouts. This check lets you view the status of your rollout in GitHub and debug the deployment process in case of any errors.
Integration with Firebase and other Google services
App Hosting sets up both your build and runtime environments so you can initialize the Firebase Admin SDK with Google Application Default Credentials. That way, your backend can communicate with other Firebase products during both build and deploy.
App Hosting locations
App Hosting deployment creates your backend resources in a specific location. This flexibility in the location of your web app has key advantages:
- Improved performance and reduced latency by bringing the data geographically closer to your users.
- A catastrophic failure for App Hosting in one region wouldn't affect web apps deployed in other regions.
You can choose any of these regions when you create an App Hosting backend from the console or the Firebase CLI:
us-central1(Iowa)asia-east1(Taiwan)