The flakey firebase local emulator is the bane of my existence, and poorly documented to boot.

On top of the Googlized clickops, there's the whole Firebase vs Google cloud situation, where you end up having to drop down to "real" google cloud for certain specific features. The docs appear to be detailed but you often end up with more questions than answers.

If you are ever thinking about using firebase, give Supabase a try. The emulator works well, the dashboard is there for prototyping but you can just write SQL to clearly define your database and migrations. Since it's just postgres you have a clear route to leave Supabase if you should ever want to.