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::billing_budgets_v1::BudgetServiceClient(
google::cloud::billing_budgets_v1::MakeBudgetServiceConnection(
options));
}
Follow these links to find examples for other *Client classes:
[[["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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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\u003eThe latest version of the documentation is 2.37.0-rc, and there are many other versions available, ranging from 2.36.0 down to 2.11.0, which you can access.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eClient libraries utilize Application Default Credentials for Google Cloud Services authentication, unless an alternative is specified.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eYou can override the default authentication by providing a \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e, such as loading a service account key file.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eExamples are provided for \u003ccode\u003ebilling_budgets_v1::BudgetServiceClient\u003c/code\u003e, \u003ccode\u003ebilling_v1::CloudBillingClient\u003c/code\u003e, and \u003ccode\u003ebilling_v1::CloudCatalogClient\u003c/code\u003e to show how to override authentication for other client classes.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/best-practices-for-managing-service-account-keys\"\u003eBest practices for managing service account keys\u003c/a\u003e guide offers further guidance, and additional information about credential creation can be found in \u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/cpp/docs/reference/common/latest/group__guac.html\"\u003eAuthentication Components\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]