Firebase Cloud Messaging comes to the Admin Node.js SDK

February 2, 2017

With Firebase, we’ve been working towards a world where developers don’t have to deal with managing servers and can instead build web and mobile apps with only client-side code. However, there are times when you really do need to spin up your own server. Towards that aim, we announced the Firebase Admin SDKs this past November.

Today, I’m excited to share two new Admin SDK features:

The Node.js SDK now contains an Admin API for sending messages via Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM).
The Java SDK can now be initialized from a set of built-in credentials, making it easier to use, especially on Google infrastructure.

Admin Node.js FCM API

The new Admin Node.js FCM API simplifies the process of sending messages via FCM. There is no extra setup required to use this new API as the existing credential used to authenticate the Node.js SDK handles everything on your behalf. The new API contains methods for sending messages to individual devices, device groups, topics, and conditions.

Topics

As an example, let’s assume you are building an app for the upcoming “Big Game” and you want to send a notification to anyone subscribed to either the Atlanta Falcons’ topic (/topics/falcons) or the New England Patriots’ topic (/topics/patriots):

const admin = require("firebase-admin");

// Fetch the service account key JSON file contents
const serviceAccount = require("path/to/serviceAccountKey.json");

// Initialize the app with a service account, granting admin privileges
admin.initializeApp({
  credential: admin.credential.cert(serviceAccount),
  databaseURL: "https://<DATABASE_NAME>.firebaseio.com"
});

// Define who to send the message to
let condition = "'falcons' in topics || 'patriots' in topics";

// Define the message payload
let payload = {
  notification: {
    title: "Falcons vs. Patriots",
    body: "Get the inside scoop on the big game."
  }
};

// Send a message to the condition with the provided payload
admin.messaging.sendToCondition(condition, payload)
  .then(function(response) {
    console.log("Successfully sent message! Server response:", response);
  })
  .catch(function(error) {
    console.log("Error sending message:", error);
  });

Priority and TTL

You can optionally provide a third option to any of the FCM methods to provide options for the message. For example, since the game is a little under a week away, let’s send the message with high priority and give it a time to live of one week:

// condition and payload are the same as above

let options = {
  priority: "high",
  timeToLive: 60 * 60 * 24 * 7
};

admin.messaging.sendToCondition(condition, payload, options)
  .then(function(response) {
    console.log("Successfully sent message! Server response:", response);
  })
  .catch(function(error) {
    console.log("Error sending message:", error);
  });

This is just a taste of what the new Admin Node.js FCM API allows you to do. See Send Messages for more code samples and detailed documentation.

Admin Java Credential Interface

Since the launch of the Admin SDKs last November, the Node.js SDK has supported several initialization methods while the Java SDK has only allowed initialization via a service account certificate file. As of the latest Admin Java SDK release, both SDKs now provide a full credential interface with some helpful default implementations.

The old API

Upgrading to the new API is straightforward. The previous way of initializing the SDK is via the setServiceAccount() method:

FileInputStream serviceAccount = new FileInputStream("path/to/serviceAccountCredentials.json");

FirebaseOptions options = new FirebaseOptions.Builder()
    .setServiceAccount(serviceAccount)
    .setDatabaseUrl("https://<DATABASE_NAME>.firebaseio.com")
    .build();

FirebaseApp.initializeApp(options);

The new API

The updated way of initializing the SDK is via the setCredential() method.

FileInputStream serviceAccount = new FileInputStream("path/to/serviceAccountCredentials.json");

FirebaseOptions options = new FirebaseOptions.Builder()
    .setCredential(FirebaseCredentials.fromCertificate(serviceAccount))
    .setDatabaseUrl("https://<DATABASE_NAME>.firebaseio.com")
    .build();

FirebaseApp.initializeApp(options);

Google Application Default Credentials

The Admin Java SDK now includes a credential implementation based on Google Application Default Credentials. This allows for auto-discovery of service account credentials on Google infrastructure like Google App Engine and Google Compute Engine. This means you don’t need to manage service account credentials yourself. Instead, you can make use of Google Application Default Credentials to run the same exact code on your local, staging, and production environments, no configuration required.

FirebaseOptions options = new FirebaseOptions.Builder()
    .setCredential(FirebaseCredentials.applicationDefault())
    .setDatabaseUrl("https://<DATABASE_NAME>.firebaseio.com")
    .build();

FirebaseApp.initializeApp(options);

See Initialize the SDK for more code samples and detailed documentation.

What’s next for the Admin SDKs?

We are continually striving to expand our first-class support for backend developers in the Firebase ecosystem. Stay tuned for more features to be added to the Firebase Admin SDKs in the future! If you’d like to see a specific feature, let us know by sending us a note through our feature request support channel.

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