Unless otherwise configured, the client libraries use Application Default Credentials to authenticate with Google Cloud Services. While this works for most applications, in some cases you may need to override this default. You can do so by providing the UnifiedCredentialsOption The following example shows how to explicitly load a service account key file:
[](std::string const& keyfile) {
auto is = std::ifstream(keyfile);
is.exceptions(std::ios::badbit); // Minimal error handling in examples
auto contents = std::string(std::istreambuf_iterator<char>(is.rdbuf()), {});
auto options =
google::cloud::Options{}.set<google::cloud::UnifiedCredentialsOption>(
google::cloud::MakeServiceAccountCredentials(contents));
return google::cloud::config_v1::ConfigClient(
google::cloud::config_v1::MakeConfigConnection(options));
}
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-03-14 UTC."],[[["This page provides documentation for overriding default authentication credentials when interacting with Google Cloud Services."],["The most current version available is 2.37.0-rc, with a variety of previous versions of the configuration documented from 2.16.0 up to 2.36.0."],["Users can override the default credentials by providing a `UnifiedCredentialsOption`, as shown in the example loading a service account key file."],["The example provided demonstrates explicitly loading a service account key file to override the default credentials, which the page clarifies is a simplified example for clarity."],["For more details on managing service account keys and creating `google::cloud::Credentials` objects, refer to the provided links for best practices and authentication components."]]],[]]
