Building a Real Time Chat Logger Project with Pub/Sub, Cloud Functions & Firestore (For Beginners)

Project Description: Real-Time Chat Logger
This project demonstrates how to build a serverless real-time chat logging application using Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services. When a user sends a message in a simulated chat environment, the message is instantly published to a Pub/Sub topic, triggering a Cloud Function that processes and logs the message into Firestore for storage and display.

The goal is to showcase how cloud-native tools can be combined to create a simple yet powerful real-time data processing pipeline—ideal for use cases like chat apps, customer support dashboards, and collaborative tools.

🚀 Tech Stack
Cloud Pub/Sub – to stream chat messages in real time

Cloud Functions – to process messages and write them to a database

Firestore (NoSQL) – to store and retrieve chat logs in real time

(Optional: GCS or Cloud Logging for auditing and persistence)

🎯 Learning Outcomes
Understand event-driven architecture with Pub/Sub

Learn how to use Cloud Functions for lightweight serverless processing

See how Firestore supports real-time updates and scalability

Build a foundational project that can be extended into more complex systems