[Unit Testing] Difficulties with mocking Firebase services in Jest/Angular environment

[luciodamico]

When using @angular/fire/compat or @angular/fire to build Angular applications, we encounter significant challenges when trying to perform unit tests with a testing framework like Jest.

The main issue stems from the tight coupling of the Auth service (and others like Storage or Firestore) to the FirebaseApp instance. Functions like getAuth() and initializeApp() are called implicitly or explicitly by the AngularFire component, which leads to the FirebaseError: No Firebase App '[DEFAULT]' has been created error.

The core problem is that we cannot properly mock these functions before the component attempts to access them. Standard mocking techniques (e.g., jest.mock, TestBed.configureTestingModule providers) fail because the functions are either read-only properties or are called in a context where a FirebaseApp instance is expected, but not yet available.

This forces developers to use fragile workarounds to get tests to pass, making the testing process difficult and prone to errors. It also discourages writing comprehensive unit tests for components that depend on Firebase services.

Suggested Improvement:

We would appreciate it if the AngularFire team could provide an official, documented strategy for unit testing with Jest. A potential solution could involve a testing utility library or a recommended pattern that correctly mocks the underlying FirebaseApp instance and its dependent services in a reliable way.