No-code Interface for Firestore in Slack: Part 1

Hey everyone!

If you are a developer that gets stopped by PMs all the time to do simple Firestore updates, this guide will save you a lot of time.

Or, if you are a PM that wants to get less things through the dev team and faster delivery for your users: you are in the right place.

In this 2 parts guide you will learn how to create a no-code interface for updating Firestore inside Slack.

In the end you'll take 10 seconds to go from this:

To this:

For any script.

In part one you will run and share Firestore update scripts from Runops

In part two you will create no-code interfaces for these scripts in seconds

Scenario​

You are working with a Feature Flag system backed by Firestore. Different users see different colors in the product experience based on these flags.

Product Managers need to update these flags many times a week for different users, but they don't have access to Firestore.

This is the sample table structure:

{    collections: {        featureFlags: { ...featureFlags },        whitelabel : {            documents: {          label1: {            palette: {                        primary: '#fff000',                        secondary: '#000fff'                    }         },                label2: {            palette: {                        primary: '#cccbbb',                        secondary: '#bbbccc'                    }        }      }        }    }}

Step 1 - Signup​

Head over to https://use.runops.io/signup -- insert your email and complete the signup 🙂

Step 2 - Add a Connection​

After signup, you get to the Tasks page. From there click on Connections.

Inside Connections, click Create then advanced configurations. Here is what to provide for each section:

Information:

Name: your Firestore table name

Type: node

Permission management:

skip for now

Secrets management:

Choose: runops-hosted.

• This option uses the Runops environment host the connection.

Key: set a name for your environment variable, like FIREBASE_CONFIG.

Value: add a Firebase Service Account JSON with access to your table.

Here is how to create this json if you don't already have one:

1. In the Firebase console, open Settings > Service Accounts.
2. Click Generate New Private Key, then confirm by clicking Generate Key.
3. Provide the JSON file containing the key to the value.

Here is what the Service Account json should look like:

{    "type": "{your-type}",    "project_id": "{your-project}",    "private_key_id": "{your-private_key_id}",    "private_key": "{your-private_key}",    "client_email": "{your-client_email}",    "client_id": "{your-client_id}",    "auth_uri": "{your-auth_uri}",    "token_uri": "{your-token_uri}",    "auth_provider_x509_cert_url": "{your-auth_provider_x509_cert_url}",    "client_x509_cert_url": "{your-client_x509_cert_url}"}

Agent Tags:

Tags: test

• Tag is a reference to your agent. In this case, use the test tag to use the agent hosted by Runops.

This is a GIF that shows the target setup flow:

Now your connection is ready to use! 🎉

Step 3 - Using the connection​

Now we need to create a script to run in your connection. In this example we will update a Firestore table. /Just.code.it

In Runops, head over to Tasks and select your firebase connection in the top left. Then put the script in the editor and run it!

Here is a script that updates the sample table. You can adapt it your structure:

const { initializeApp, cert } = require('firebase-admin/app');const { getFirestore } = require('firebase-admin/firestore');const firebaseConfig = process.env.FIREBASE_CONFIG;const firebaseConfigParsed = JSON.parse(firebaseConfig);initializeApp({  credential: cert(firebaseConfigParsed)});console.log('Access to DB');const db = getFirestore();const docRef = db.collection('whitelabel')const newDoc = 'label3'const main = async () => {    console.log('Inserting new doc with data');    const res = await docRef.doc(newDoc).set({    palette: {        primary: '#455355',        secondary: '#344566'    }    });    console.log('Finished with success', res);}main();

After running the script, we get the collection Whitelabel updated!

ihuuul look at this:

That's it for part 1, you can use Runops as safe way to access your Firestore database. You can share this script with others and have them re-run it inside Runops instead of learning Firebase UI.

But it can get waaay better. Check out part two to learn how to create a no-code interface based on this script in less than one minute.