firebase DB and express - node.js

Question

I'm trying to connect my firebase data to express in a similar way I would with a data.json file - am I doing this correctly?
I'm getting a "Warning, FIREBASE_CONFIG and GCLOUD_PROJECT environment variables are missing. Initializing firebase-admin will fail" error that I'm nto quite sure how to fix - I also found an article that seems like Firebase can be accessed all in the front end so maybe I don't need to use express?
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const port = process.env.PORT || process.argv[2] || 8080
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
// const data = require('./data.json');
const cors = require('cors');
const firebase = require('firebase-functions');
const admin = require('firebase-admin');
const config = require('./config');
const db = firebase.initializeApp(config);
const serviceAccount = require('./serviceAccount.json');
require('dotenv').config();
app.use(cors());
app.use(bodyparser.urlencoded({extended: true}));
app.options('*', cors());
app.use(bodyParser.json());
admin.initializeApp({
credential: admin.credential.cert(serviceAccount),
databaseURL: 'https://wheresthespot-f83b8.firebaseio.com'
});
app.get('/locations', (req, res) => {
res.send(db)
})
app.get('/location/:name', (req, res) => {
res.send(b)
})
app.post('location', (req, res) => {
const { id, location, description, morningLight, eveningLight, address, city, region, longitude, latitude, categories, permit } = req.body
const newLocation = {
id,
location,
description,
morningLight,
eveningLight,
address,
city,
region,
longitude,
latitude,
categories,
permit
}
res.json([
db.locations,
newLocation
])
db.locations.push(newLocations);
})
app.listen(port, () => console.log(`We're live on port, ${port}`))
module.exports.db = db.database();```

Answer 1

In order to use the Firebase Admin SDK effectively, you should start with the instructions. In particular, you will need to figure out how you would like to initialize the SDK. If you are running your own node server, you will need to provide credentials for your Firebase project as shown in that documentation.
We can't see exactly what you're doing now, since we don't know what's in './config'. The documentation suggests setting the environment variable "GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS" to point to the file with your service account credentials. You will not be able to use the configuration for web or mobile applications - you must use a service account.