Welcome to Part 21 of the Google Cloud Functions Training series! In this session, we’ll explore how to work with JWT (JSON Web Tokens) for session management. While Firebase provides ID tokens, integrating JWT allows you to build custom session tokens that can handle advanced authentication flows and secure communication between your frontend and backend.

✅ What You’ll Learn in This Video:
✔️ What JWT is and why it’s essential for session-based authentication
✔️ Generating custom JWTs in Cloud Functions
✔️ Signing and verifying tokens with a secret or private key
✔️ Handling token expiration and refresh logic
✔️ Using JWT for secure API requests across your frontend and backend

💡 Why This Step Matters:
🔹 Adds flexibility to authentication by allowing custom session management
🔹 Makes your app backend-agnostic (works beyond Firebase)
🔹 Provides a scalable way to authorize requests securely
🔹 Prepares your system for advanced security patterns like RBAC and microservices