Firestore pipeline queries let you run multi-stage read operations (filter, project, aggregate, vector search, and more) against Cloud Firestore using a fluent, composable API. React Native Firebase exposes the same modular pipeline surface as the firebase-js-sdk so you can reuse patterns from web documentation and samples.

Pipeline support in React Native Firebase is marked @beta in TypeScript. APIs may evolve as Firebase ships new pipeline features.

Traditional Firestore queries are collection-scoped and limited to a single query shape. Pipelines chain stages (for example where, select, aggregate, findNearest) on a source (collection, collection group, documents list, or an existing query). Each stage transforms the result of the previous stage.

Google's upstream resources:

• Get started with pipeline queries
• firebase-js-sdk pipeline reference
• Introducing pipeline operations (Firebase blog, Jan 2026)

For a full list of which firebase-js-sdk exports are available in React Native Firebase today, see SDK compatibility.

Pipeline execute() requires a Firestore Enterprise database. Standard edition databases reject pipeline execution. Create an Enterprise database in the Firebase console or with the Firebase CLI before testing pipelines in your project.

The Firestore emulator used for most React Native Firebase e2e tests runs in Standard edition mode and does not faithfully execute pipeline queries. Plan to develop and test pipelines against a live Enterprise database in your Firebase project.

The emulator may gain additional Enterprise pipeline support over time, but React Native Firebase pipeline integration tests today run against a dedicated cloud database (pipelines-e2e on the public testing project), not the local emulator.

Pipelines ship inside @react-native-firebase/firestore. Install the app and Firestore modules as described in Cloud Firestore usage:

yarn add @react-native-firebase/app @react-native-firebase/firestore
cd ios && pod install

Expression helpers and types are imported from the pipelines entry point:

import { getFirestore } from '@react-native-firebase/firestore';
import { field, constant, execute } from '@react-native-firebase/firestore/pipelines';

You can also call getFirestore().pipeline() on any Firestore instance to start building a pipeline from a source stage.

This example reads documents from a collection, keeps rows where score is at least 10, projects two fields, and sorts by score descending. Adjust the database id and collection path for your Enterprise database.

import { getFirestore } from '@react-native-firebase/firestore';
import { field, execute } from '@react-native-firebase/firestore/pipelines';

const db = getFirestore(); // use a named Enterprise database id if needed

const pipeline = db
  .pipeline()
  .collection('books')
  .where(field('score').greaterThanOrEqual(10))
  .select(field('title'), field('score'))
  .sort({ ordering: [{ fieldPath: 'score', direction: 'desc' }] });

const snapshot = await execute(pipeline);
snapshot.results.forEach(row => {
  console.log(row.data());
});

execute() returns a PipelineSnapshot with a results array of pipeline rows. Iterate snapshot.results or access individual entries by index.

React Native Firebase supports these source types:

These stage types are available on the pipeline builder:

The findNearest stage runs vector similarity search over an indexed embedding field. Use the same lowercase distanceMeasure values as the firebase-js-sdk pipeline reference: 'euclidean', 'cosine', or 'dot_product'.

Create a vector index on your Enterprise database before running this query.

import { getFirestore } from '@react-native-firebase/firestore';
import { execute } from '@react-native-firebase/firestore/pipelines';

const db = getFirestore(); // Enterprise database with a vector index on `embedding`

const queryVector = [1.0, 0.0, 0.0];

const snapshot = await execute(
  db
    .pipeline()
    .collection('products')
    .findNearest({
      field: 'embedding',
      vectorValue: queryVector,
      distanceMeasure: 'euclidean',
      limit: 5,
    })
    .select('name'),
);

snapshot.results.forEach(row => {
  console.log(row.data().name);
});

Newer firebase-js-sdk stage helpers such as subcollection and parent are not yet exposed — see SDK compatibility.

On iOS, pipelines that use unsupported expression functions fail before execution with a clear error listing the function names. The compatibility page lists the current set.

On macOS, pipeline execution goes through the web Firebase SDK bundled for React Native macOS targets. Behavior should match web pipeline queries for the same database and rules.

Pipeline types and expression helpers are exported from @react-native-firebase/firestore/pipelines. The firestore.pipeline() method is augmented on Firestore when you import the firestore module.

Run yarn compare:types in the React Native Firebase repository to see tracked differences between our public types and the firebase-js-sdk pipelines declarations.

See Pipeline SDK compatibility for the full firebase-js-sdk parity matrix.

• Review SDK compatibility before porting firebase-js-sdk pipeline samples.
• Read Firebase's get started guide for index setup, vector search, and security rules considerations.
• For classic collection queries, continue with Cloud Firestore usage.