Cloud Functions, Firebase: parsing function triggers error

Question

i am trying to follow the tutorial at https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/firebase-cloud-functions/#7 and I am getting the "Error occurred while parsing your function triggers" error. firebase-tools verson is 5.6.0. What I am doing wrong?

Stack Trace:

C:\Users\user\Downloads\friendlychat-web-master\cloud-functions-start\functions>firebase deploy --only functions

=== Deploying to 'friendlychat'...

i  deploying functions
i  functions: ensuring necessary APIs are enabled...
+  functions: all necessary APIs are enabled
i  functions: preparing functions directory for uploading...

Error: Error occurred while parsing your function triggers.

C:\Users\user\Downloads\friendlychat-web-master\cloud-functions-start\functions\index.js:23
exports.addWelcomeMessages = functions.auth.user().onCreate(async(user)=>{
                                                                 ^
SyntaxError: Unexpected token (
    at createScript (vm.js:56:10)
    at Object.runInThisContext (vm.js:97:10)
    at Module._compile (module.js:542:28)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:579:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:487:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:446:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:438:3)
    at Module.require (module.js:497:17)
    at require (internal/module.js:20:19)
    at C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\firebase-tools\lib\triggerParser.js:21:11

functions\\index.js

const functions = require('firebase-functions');
const admin = require('firebase-admin');
admin.initializeApp();    
exports.addWelcomeMessages = functions.auth.user().onCreate(async(user)=>{
    const fullName = user.displayName || 'Anonymous';
      await admin.database().ref('messages').push({
      name: 'Firebase Bot',
      profilePicUrl: '/images/firebase-logo.png', // Firebase logo
      text: `${fullName} signed in for the first time! Welcome!`,
    });
  });

functions\\Package.json:

{
  "name": "friendlychat-codelab",
  "description": "Firebase SDK for Cloud Functions codelab",
  "dependencies": {
    "firebase-admin": "~5.13.1",
    "firebase-functions": "^2.0.0"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "eslint": "^4.12.0",
    "eslint-plugin-promise": "^3.6.0"
  },
  "engines": {
    "node": "8"
  },
  "private": true
}

Answer 1

The instructions at the beginning of the codelab require you to be using nodejs 8. You're probably using an older version, which doesn't support async/await.

Check your node version with this:

node --version

It should be version 8. If it's not, you'll have to replace it.