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::contentwarehouse_v1::DocumentServiceClient(
google::cloud::contentwarehouse_v1::MakeDocumentServiceConnection(
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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-07-09 UTC."],[[["The latest version available is 2.37.0-rc, with numerous other versions, down to 2.12.0, also listed for reference."],["By default, client libraries utilize Application Default Credentials for authenticating with Google Cloud Services, but this can be overridden."],["Authentication can be customized using `UnifiedCredentialsOption`, as demonstrated with an example showing how to load a service account key file."],["Examples for how to use service accounts with various `*Client` classes such as `contentwarehouse_v1::DocumentServiceClient`, and `contentwarehouse_v1::DocumentLinkServiceClient` can be found in the provided links."],["For best practices regarding managing service account keys, users are referred to the Google Cloud guide on the topic and are provided with a link."]]],[]]