Seeking Advice: Easiest deployment path for a beginner building a 100% Google Ecosystem Web App (React + Vertex AI + Firebase)

Google AI Studio
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Hi everyone,

I’m a beginner developer currently building a web application primarily using AI Studio. I act as the product architect while the AI helps me generate the codebase. I currently have my project synced to a private GitHub repository, and everything runs perfectly on my local development server.

My project is designed to be 100% reliant on the Google ecosystem:

  • Frontend: React 19 (Vite), Tailwind CSS.

  • Backend/Data: Firebase (Authentication, Firestore, Storage).

  • AI Integrations: Vertex AI APIs (Gemini for dynamic text, Imagen for images, Veo for video, and Cloud Text-to-Speech / Speech-to-Text).

I am now approaching the deployment phase and, to be completely honest, I am quite intimidated by cloud architecture. Given my limited traditional DevOps skills, I am looking for the absolute most intuitive and beginner-friendly way to put this app online.

My questions are:

  1. What is the easiest Google platform to host a React app that needs to securely communicate with Vertex AI and Firebase? (Should I stick entirely to Firebase Hosting, explore Google Cloud Run, or use something like Project IDX?)

  2. What is the most frictionless workflow to connect my GitHub repository to this hosting environment so that it updates automatically?

  3. Are there any specific security best practices I should keep in mind as a beginner to protect my API keys when deploying this specific stack?

Any advice, learning paths, or beginner-friendly tutorials to help me cross this final deployment bridge would be massively appreciated.

Thank you!