A number of environment variables can be used to configure the behavior of the library. There are also functions to configure this behavior in code. The environment variables are convenient when troubleshooting problems.
Endpoint Overrides
GOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_ACCESS_CONTEXT_MANAGER_ENDPOINT=... overrides the EndpointOption (which defaults to "accesscontextmanager.googleapis.com") used by MakeAccessContextManagerConnection().
GOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_ENABLE_TRACING=rpc: turns on tracing for most gRPC calls. The library injects an additional Stub decorator that prints each gRPC request and response. Unless you have configured your own logging backend, you should also set GOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_ENABLE_CLOG to produce any output on the program's console.
See Also
google::cloud::TracingComponentsOptionGOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_TRACING_OPTIONS=...: modifies the behavior of gRPC tracing, including whether messages will be output on multiple lines, or whether string/bytes fields will be truncated.
See Also
google::cloud::GrpcTracingOptionsOptionGOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_ENABLE_CLOG=yes: turns on logging in the library, basically the library always "logs" but the logging infrastructure has no backend to actually print anything until the application sets a backend or they set this environment variable.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eThis document outlines various versions of the Access Context Manager, ranging from version 2.11.0 to the latest release candidate 2.37.0-rc.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eEnvironment variables such as \u003ccode\u003eGOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_ACCESS_CONTEXT_MANAGER_ENDPOINT\u003c/code\u003e can override default settings, like the endpoint for the \u003ccode\u003eMakeAccessContextManagerConnection()\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eLogging and tracing for gRPC calls can be enabled using the \u003ccode\u003eGOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_ENABLE_TRACING\u003c/code\u003e and \u003ccode\u003eGOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_ENABLE_CLOG\u003c/code\u003e environment variables, respectively.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ccode\u003eGOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_TRACING_OPTIONS\u003c/code\u003e variable allows customization of gRPC tracing behavior, such as output formatting and field truncation.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWhile the \u003ccode\u003eGOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT\u003c/code\u003e variable is used in examples and tests, it does not influence the library's functionality.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]