Running firebase deploy with service account and missing permission errors with "Assertion failed"

[fiws]

[REQUIRED] Environment info

firebase-tools: 13.9.0

Platform: node:lts docker container

[REQUIRED] Test case

Any project with a firebase.json

[REQUIRED] Steps to reproduce

1. Set GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS to an service account key that does not have access to the project used in the next command
2. Try to run firebase deploy --project invalid-project-name-2358923 --only hosting --non-interactive

[REQUIRED] Expected behavior

Should print that the project does not exist or that auth is required. (Something like that)

[REQUIRED] Actual behavior

Prints this:

Error: Assertion failed: resolving hosting target of a site with no site name or target name. This should have caused an error earlier

Which sounds like firebase is just broken and does not suggest that it could be an auth issue anywhere.

[aalej]

Hey @fiws, thanks for raising this issue and for providing a detailed report. I do agree that an error message stating that the service account does not have permission or something similar would be more helpful. I’ll raise this to our engineering team.