Sending automated emails from Firebase through Google Cloud Platform (no third parties)

Question

We've been doing some research for many hours already.

The first solution that appears everywhere (other StackExchange questions too) is using third-party service SendGrid.com and sometimes in conjunction with Zapier, but that's not the approach we are wanting to implement.

For sending without third-parties in the middle, the first solution that seemed viable was "Firebase Triggers", which was anounced on Google I/O 2014 but never came to life and seemingly was merged into Google Cloud Functions which is still in Alpha.

I'm pretty sure I had seen the solution almost a year ago in a link on the FireBase blog, but the only post that seems to have existed upon that matter is now empty.

We've never worked before with GCP, but our logic tells us this matter should be solved (inside Google) using with another GCP existing API, and the Mail API is apparently the correct one, but there seems not to be any way our Firebase Web App could make the request.

Could anyone (preferably with GCP experience) please explain what's the situation here, and how does Google expects it's FireBase developers to send emails to their clients?

Firebase Functions

As gracefully stated by @ajostergaard, TODAY Google has announced its much waited Google Cloud Functions, but precisely for Firebase they've implemented their own specific Firebase Functions which substitutes the Triggers shown in conferences since Nov. 2014 (more than 2 years ago!) and mentioned in Firebase groups .

This is an example link that explains exactly how to do what is asked in this question:

• Sending emails from Firebase (FINALLY! and just in time for our WebApp)

Comments

[ostergaard]

My answer got deleted by a very 'nice' moderator because I apparently tried to spread the good news too eagerly. Apparently instead of answering your question I should have marked it as duplicate and pointed it to another older 'duplicate' question with lots of wrong and out of date answers on it. Sometimes I wonder! :)

[DavidTaubmann]

@ajostergaard , could you please direct me to the other question you mentioned in the comment?

[ostergaard]

There are many to which my answer was appropriate, not necessarily duplicates. Some examples: stackoverflow.com/questions/17723195/… stackoverflow.com/questions/39180768/… stackoverflow.com/questions/28656191/…

[starmandeluxe]

Does this also work with non-Firebase Google Cloud Functions?