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::batch_v1::BatchServiceClient(
google::cloud::batch_v1::MakeBatchServiceConnection(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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 a list of versioned documentation for batch override authentication, ranging from the latest release candidate \u003ccode\u003e2.37.0-rc\u003c/code\u003e down to version \u003ccode\u003e2.11.0\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest stable version of the documentation is \u003ccode\u003e2.36.0\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe default authentication for the client libraries is \u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/docs/authentication#adc\"\u003eApplication Default Credentials\u003c/a\u003e, but this can be overridden when necessary.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eAuthentication can be overridden by using the \u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/cpp/docs/reference/common/latest/structgoogle_1_1cloud_1_1UnifiedCredentialsOption.html\"\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/a\u003e and an example is provided for loading a service account key file.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/cpp/docs/reference/common/latest/group__guac.html\"\u003eAuthentication Components\u003c/a\u003e page contains more information on creating \u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/cpp/docs/reference/common/latest/classgoogle_1_1cloud_1_1Credentials.html\"\u003e\u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/a\u003e objects.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]