Functional requirements

Requirement Description
Credential Loading The library must allow users to authenticate using a Google Cloud service account JSON file.
Collection Retrieval The library must retrieve all documents from a specified Firestore collection.
Document Conversion Retrieved Firestore documents must be converted into Python dictionaries.
DataFrame Output The library must provide a method to convert Firestore data into a pandas DataFrame.
Error Handling The system must raise user-friendly, custom exceptions for credential errors, connection issues, or invalid input.
Input Validation The library must validate required parameters.
Example Usage Code The project must include example scripts demonstrating typical usage patterns.
Efficient Data Fetching The library must support a high-level functions that return Firestore data with minimal amount of calls.

Non-functional requirements

Requirement Description
Programming Language Library will be written in Python programming language.
Code Quality The library must follow Python best practices, clean code standards, and type annotations.
Python Version Compatibility The library must support Python 3.9+ or higher.
Performance Efficiency Data retrieval and conversion must perform efficiently for small-to-medium datasets.
Usability & Simplicity The library must be intuitive, minimal, and easy for developers to integrate.
Maintainability Code must be modular, well-documented, and easy to extend or refactor.
Security Sensitive credentials must not be stored internally; the library must handle only user-provided file paths.
Reliability The library must be able to connect to Firestore as long as credentials and network conditions are valid.
Dependency Stability Official Google Cloud libraries must be used in the library to minimize breaking changes.
Test Coverage Core components must be covered by unit tests to ensure reliability.
Documentation Quality All functions, modules, and usage examples must be clearly documented.
Portability The library must run on Windows operating systems.
Minimal External Requirements The library must function with only the required dependencies, without any external libraries.