Ultimate Guide to Server-Side Scripting – Initialize Firebase App & Get Token

Welcome to Part 10 of the Ultimate Guide to Server-Side Scripting! In this session, we’ll initialize Firebase in your React frontend and configure it to retrieve a secure ID token upon user authentication. This token will later be used to access protected backend routes and verify user identity on the server side.

You’ll learn how to bridge Firebase Auth with your custom backend using best practices for full-stack security.

✅ What You’ll Learn in This Video:
✔️ How to initialize Firebase in your frontend project
✔️ Setting up Firebase Auth (Email/Password or Google login)
✔️ Logging in and retrieving the current user
✔️ Extracting the Firebase ID token using getIdToken()
✔️ Sending the token in API requests to your Node.js backend

💡 Why This Step Matters:
🔹 Securely connects frontend authentication to your backend
🔹 Enables protected API access with token validation
🔹 Prepares you to implement role-based access and session control