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::confidentialcomputing_v1::ConfidentialComputingClient(
google::cloud::confidentialcomputing_v1::
MakeConfidentialComputingConnection(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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 page provides version-specific documentation for the Confidential Computing C++ client library, ranging from the latest release candidate (2.37.0-rc) down to version 2.11.0.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe default authentication method for the client libraries is Application Default Credentials, but this can be overridden using \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e allows users to explicitly load a service account key file for authentication, as shown in the provided code example.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe provided example shows how to override the credentials using a service account key file, but also includes a link to best practices on managing service account keys.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eMore information on the factory functions to create credentials objects can be found in the Authentication Components documentation.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]
