Firebase Hosting

"Deployment should be boring — if it's exciting, something is wrong." — Unknown

TL;DR

Guides Firebase Hosting configuration and deployment — rewrite rules for SPAs, custom headers for security and caching, preview channels for PR reviews, multi-site hosting for multiple apps, and CDN cache control. Use when deploying static sites or SPAs to Firebase's global CDN. [EXPLICIT]

Procedure

Step 1: Discover

• Check existing firebase.json hosting configuration
• Identify hosting requirements (SPA rewrites, API proxying, custom headers)
• Determine multi-site needs (main site, admin panel, docs site)
• Review current deployment workflow (manual, CI/CD, preview channels)

Step 2: Analyze

• Plan rewrite rules: SPA fallback, Cloud Function proxying, Cloud Run integration
• Design header strategy: security headers, cache control, CORS
• Evaluate preview channel workflow for PR-based deployments
• Determine CDN cache invalidation strategy

Step 3: Execute

• Configure firebase.json hosting with public directory and ignore patterns
• Add SPA rewrite: {"source": "**", "destination": "/index.html"}
• Set security headers: X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Strict-Transport-Security
• Configure cache headers: long cache for hashed assets, short cache for HTML
• Set up preview channels: firebase hosting:channel:deploy pr-123
• Add multi-site config for separate hosting targets
• Configure custom domain in Firebase Console

Step 4: Validate

• Deploy to preview channel and verify all routes work
• Check security headers with securityheaders.com
• Verify cache headers are set correctly for static assets vs HTML
• Confirm custom domain SSL is provisioned and active

Quality Criteria

• SPA rewrite rule configured for client-side routing
• Security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options) configured
• Static assets cached with long-lived max-age and content hashing
• Preview channels used for pre-deployment review
• Evidence tags applied to all claims

Anti-Patterns

• Deploying directly to production without preview channel testing
• Not setting cache headers (Firebase defaults may not be optimal)
• Using Firebase Hosting for server-rendered content without Cloud Run integration

Related Skills

• firebase-setup — hosting is part of Firebase project initialization
• firebase-deployment — deployment workflows for production releases

Usage

Example invocations:

• "/firebase-hosting" — Run the full firebase hosting workflow
• "firebase hosting on this project" — Apply to current context

Assumptions & Limits

• Assumes access to project artifacts (code, docs, configs) [EXPLICIT]
• Requires English-language output unless otherwise specified [EXPLICIT]
• Does not replace domain expert judgment for final decisions [EXPLICIT]

Edge Cases

Scenario	Handling
Empty or minimal input	Request clarification before proceeding
Conflicting requirements	Flag conflicts explicitly, propose resolution
Out-of-scope request	Redirect to appropriate skill or escalate