How Can I Connect My React Native App to a Firebase Database Hosted on GCP?

When using Firebase with React Native—even if your Firebase project was originally created in the Google Cloud Platform—the connection configuration remains the same. The Firebase configuration object you use (the one with apiKey, authDomain, projectId, etc.) is generated for your project and includes all required information to connect to your Firebase services.

For example, your connection string remains:

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import { initializeApp } from 'firebase/app';
import { getAuth } from 'firebase/auth';
import { getFirestore } from 'firebase/firestore';

// Initialize Firebase with your config
const firebaseConfig = {
    apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY',
    authDomain: 'YOUR_AUTH_DOMAIN',
    projectId: 'YOUR_PROJECT_ID',
    storageBucket: 'YOUR_STORAGE_BUCKET',
    messagingSenderId: 'YOUR_MESSAGING_SENDER_ID',
    appId: 'YOUR_APP_ID'
};

export const FIREBASE_APP = initializeApp(firebaseConfig);
export const FIRESTORE_DB = getFirestore(FIREBASE_APP);
export const FIREBASE_AUTH = getAuth(FIREBASE_APP);

Key Points

• Firebase Project vs. GCP Project: A Firebase project is backed by a Google Cloud Platform project. Although you might have created your project in GCP, when you add Firebase services, you receive the same Firebase configuration object.
• No Separate Connection String: There is no separate "GCP connection string" for Firebase databases. The configuration provided in your Firebase console (or in your google-services.json / GoogleService-Info.plist file) is the one you need.
• Standard Initialization: Use the standard initialization code (as shown above) to connect your React Native app to Firebase, regardless of where the backend was created.

In summary, you continue to use the same configuration object—even for projects originating from the Google Cloud Platform.