Firebase integration still leaks into generated App Clip target

[okansahin]

Summary

We ran into a second issue while integrating react-native-app-clip in an Expo app that also uses React Native Firebase.

Even when Firebase packages are excluded from the App Clip target, Firebase-specific Xcode integration still leaks into the generated App Clip target.

In our case this showed up in two places:

1. Firebase build phases were still attached to the App Clip target
2. Firebase bootstrap code was still present in the generated App Clip AppDelegate.swift

What we observed

Our App Clip target is intended to be Firebase-free.

We excluded Firebase packages such as:

• @react-native-firebase/app
• @react-native-firebase/crashlytics
• @react-native-firebase/auth
• @react-native-firebase/firestore
• @react-native-firebase/remote-config
• @react-native-firebase/storage

However, after expo prebuild -p ios, the generated App Clip target still ended up with Firebase-related integration.

Specifically, the App Clip target initially contained build phases like:

• [CP-User] [RNFB] Core Configuration
• [CP-User] [RNFB] Crashlytics Configuration

And the generated App Clip AppDelegate.swift still contained:

import FirebaseCore
FirebaseApp.configure()

This caused build-time failures such as missing GOOGLE_APP_ID, and in general meant the App Clip target was not actually isolated from Firebase.

Why this seems separate from excludedPackages wiring

I opened a separate PR for excludedPackages not being passed through to cliPlugin.js:

• fix(plugin): pass excludedPackages to cliPlugin #88

That issue explains why community/native dependencies can still be autolinked into the App Clip target.

But this Firebase issue appears to be different:

• the App Clip target itself is being generated from a main app target that has already been modified by other Expo config plugins
• so Firebase-specific target configuration and bootstrap code can still leak into the generated App Clip target even when Firebase packages are intended to be excluded from that target

Question

How would you prefer this to be handled upstream?

Options I can imagine:

1. react-native-app-clip detects excluded Firebase packages and strips known Firebase build phases / bootstrap from the generated App Clip target
2. App Clip target generation should happen earlier / differently so plugin-modified main target files are not copied with Firebase-specific code
3. This is better handled outside this library, and the recommended solution should live in docs

I’m happy to help with a follow-up PR, but I wanted to ask first because this seems more like a cross-plugin / second-target integration problem than a single isolated Podfile wiring bug.

[okansahin]

Closing the loop from our side.

We were able to get our App Clip working, but the final solution for us was not to keep pushing the generated full-app target model further.

What we observed in practice was consistent with this issue:

• Firebase-related build phases leaked into the generated App Clip target
• Firebase bootstrap leaked into the generated App Clip AppDelegate.swift
• this had to be cleaned up separately from the excludedPackages problem

In our case, we ultimately treated the App Clip as a much more isolated surface:

• main app kept its normal Expo Router / full app setup
• App Clip used a separate JS entry (index.clip.js)
• App Clip used a separate direct root component instead of trying to boot through the same root/router/bootstrap path as the main app

We also had to apply project-specific cleanup for the generated iOS target, including removing RNFirebase build phases and Firebase bootstrap from the App Clip target.

So from our side, this issue does appear to be real, but it also seems tightly tied to the broader point that this package becomes difficult when the App Clip is materially different from the main app and when packages like Firebase/Reanimated/etc. are being aggressively excluded.

At this point, since we have a working path and also got useful guidance in PR #88, we are going to stop pushing on this issue from our side.

For anyone else landing here:

• if your App Clip is very close to your main app, this package may still be a good fit
• if your App Clip is much smaller and intentionally excludes large native integrations like Firebase, you may be better served by a more isolated / native-first App Clip approach

Thanks again for the discussion and context.