Connect Project With Firebase

Next, we need to connect your project with Firebase, so we can deploy web experiments.

Setup

Move to the testing_zone folder in your project (e.g., locally or on GitHub Codespaces).

The testing_zone contains a basic template for a website that is compatible with the AutoRA Experimentation Manager for Firebase and the AutoRA Recruitment Manager for Prolific.

Copy Web App Credentials From Firebase

Navigate to the Firebase console and select the project you created.
On the gear-symbol next to Project Overview, you can find project settings.

You will find credentials in the tab general (you might have to scroll down). They should contain something like this

// Your web app's Firebase configuration
const firebaseConfig = {
  apiKey: "AIzaadskKasjjasjKqsIt-UPXSDsdkdDhjBDU",
  authDomain: "closed-loop-study.firebaseapp.com",
  projectId: "closed-loop-study",
  storageBucket: "closed-loop-study.appspot.com",
  messagingSenderId: "338700008594",
  appId: "1:3328439208594:web:136f203fe48f63ea4b"
};

Copy the credentials to the corresponding variables in the .env file in the testing_zone folder that was created on your system using create-react-app or cookiecutter. After you copied the credentials, it should look something like this:

REACT_APP_apiKey="AIzaadskKasjjasjKqsIt-UPXSDsdkdDhjBDU"
REACT_APP_authDomain="closed-loop-study.firebaseapp.com"
REACT_APP_projectId="closed-loop-study"
REACT_APP_storageBucket="closed-loop-study.appspot.com"
REACT_APP_messagingSenderId="338700008594"
REACT_APP_appId="1:3328439208594:web:136f203fe48f63ea4b"
REACT_APP_devNoDb="True"
REACT_APP_useProlificId="False"
REACT_APP_completionCode="complete"

For now, we will leave REACT_APP_useProlificId="False". We will change these later when we set up the Prolific integration.

Configure Your Project For Firebase

!!! IMPORTANT !!! Make sure to cd into the testing_zone folder in your terminal.
In the testing_zone folder, enter the following commands in your terminal: First log in to your Firebase account using

firebase login

or (if you run this in codespace)

firebase login --no-localhost

If asked to collect CLI and Emulator Suite usage information, you can choose to answer yes or no.

Hint

You may be asked to authenticate. Follow the instructions in your terminal to authenticate your account. This will require following a link that requires you to sign in with your Google account. Once you selected a Google account. Follow the setup and allow Firebase CLI access. Click Yes, I just ran this command. Assuming this is your session ID, click Yes, this is my session ID. Next, you are taken to a long string that you can copy into the terminal. It should look something like this: 2/0AVGKJADKHAXKg4ML_Usub28sdhjdskjsdktwWeAJASKFCjrKMck-SBEfgsddDmKQlfrDSQ.

Initialize the Firebase project in the testing_zone folder by running:
```
firebase init
```
An interactive initialization process will now run in your command line. You can select options with SPACE and confirm your selection with ENTER.
For the first question, select the following options. Once you selected both options, press ENTER.
Firestore: Configure security rules and indexes files for Firestore
Hosting: Configure files for Firebase Hosting and (optionally) set up GitHub Action deploys
Select use an existing project. Press ENTER.
Select the project you created earlier. You should recognize it by the project name you entered when setting up Firebase. Press ENTER.
Confirm the default option (firestore.rules) with ENTER.
Confirm the default option ((firestore.indexes.json)) with ENTER.
!!! IMPORTANT !!! Use the build directory instead of the public directory here. Enter build and press ENTER.
Configure as a single-page app. Enter y and press ENTER.
Don't set up automatic builds and deploys with GitHub. Enter N and press ENTER.
Don't overwrite the index.html file if the question pops up.

Install jspsych

Next, we install jspsych (still within the testing_zone folder):
```
npm install jspsych@7.3.1
```

and a minimal package:

npm install @jspsych/plugin-html-keyboard-response

Build And Deploy To Firebase

The testing zone folder already contains a default web-based experiment. To serve this web-experiment on the internet, you must build and deploy it to Firebase. We will repeat this step later once we deploy our actual experiment.

To build the experiment, run
```
npm run build
```
To deploy the experiment to Firebase, run
```
firebase deploy
```
If everything worked, you should see something like this:

This includes a link to your web-based experiment. You can now open this link in your browser. However, at this moment, we haven't built an experiment yet, so you will see nothing interesting. Next, we will set up the AutoRA workflow and generate the experiment.

Next Steps

Next: Initialize your AutoRA workflow in the researcher hub.