It’s been an exciting year for Firebase Data Connect! Since our debut at Google I/O and to our public preview launch in October, we’ve been so inspired by your continuous enthusiasm. As we wrap up the year, let’s take a moment to look back on everything we’ve added since public preview and share a sneak peek at what’s coming next.
What’s New
One-Liner Setup
For macOS and Linux developers, setting up Firebase Data Connect in your local environment is now just one command away:
curl -sL https://firebase.tools/dataconnect | bash
This installs the tools and launches a browser-based IDE or your locally installed VSCode to help you manage schemas and build queries. Windows users, hang tight—we’re working to bring this setup flow to you soon!
Gemini Code Assist
GraphQL queries can be tricky, so why not let Gemini handle them? With simple prompts, you can generate GraphQL queries directly in the Firebase console.
For example, type:
“Return the top five movies of 2022, sorted by rating”
…and Gemini writes the query for you. Read more about it here, or try it out for yourself!
See deployed operations in the Firebase console
Head over to the new “Operations” page in the Firebase console to verify your API surface area. Here, all of your deployed connectors and operations are in one place, helping you to verify their structure and requirements.
Authorization Lookups with @check
Custom logic just got easier! The @check directive now supports CEL expressions, making it possible to authorize mutations by looking up data in separate tables and validating fields with conditional logic.
For example:
@check(expr: "this.role == 'editor'", message: "You must be an editor to modify this.")
This feature has been a popular ask among users, and we can’t wait to see the creative ways you use it!
Quickstarts and codelabs
We’ve added quickstarts for iOS, Dart, and Android, alongside a web quickstart and codelab, to help you hit the ground running. Dedicated codelabs for these platforms are also in the works—stay tuned!
IDX templates
Looking to get started even faster? Choose between an empty template for a fresh start or a complete one with a working example with our IDX templates. These templates allows you to skip the usual setup, installation, and IDE configurations—-just pick a template and start building!
DataConnect SQL Shell
Need to run raw SQL queries? There’s a new SQL Shell that lets you run queries from the command line:
firebase dataconnect:sql:shell
>>> Enter your SQL query (or '.exit'): SELECT tablename FROM pg_tables WHERE schemaname = 'public';
>>> SELECT * FROM <table_name>
It’s a great way to manage your database when you need to get a bit more hands on.
What’s next
As we gear up for 2025, our engineering team is hard at work bringing new features to Firebase Data Connect. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming your way in the new year!
More codelabs: New codelabs for Dart, iOS, and Android are coming, along with updates to existing ones to cover the latest features.
Sample Apps: Real world sample apps that demonstrate the power of Data Connect and how they integrate with other Firebase products.
We’ve heard a lot of requests for things like web framework bindings, multistep transactions, and more. They’re definitely on our radar. While we don’t have a timeline to share just yet, rest assured that our devs are working hard on these as well as other functionalities. Stay tuned!
We’d Love to Hear from You
Before we wrap up, a huge thank you to everyone who’s supported Firebase Data Connect this year. Your feedback and questions have been instrumental in shaping what we’ve built so far—and we’re just getting started!
Have thoughts about what’s working or what could be better? What do you love? What could be better? Are there features you’d like to see in the future? Please drop us a note in Firebase’s UserVoice. Don’t forget to tag your ideas with “Data Connect”.
Thank you all again for being with us this past year, and here’s to a new year of creating apps together!
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