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::apphub_v1::AppHubClient(
google::cloud::apphub_v1::MakeAppHubConnection(options));
}
[[["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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 provides guidance on overriding the default authentication credentials used by client libraries when interacting with Google Cloud Services.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe default authentication mechanism, Application Default Credentials, can be overridden using the \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eAn example is provided demonstrating how to load a service account key file and use it for authentication, which uses \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::MakeServiceAccountCredentials(contents)\u003c/code\u003e within \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe document refers to the best practices for service account keys.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThis document also lists the different available versions of this library.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]