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::datastream_v1::DatastreamClient(
google::cloud::datastream_v1::MakeDatastreamConnection(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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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\u003eThe latest version available is 2.37.0-rc, with numerous other versions, including the current version 2.19.0, also accessible via the provided links.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eClient libraries default to using Application Default Credentials for Google Cloud Services authentication, but this can be overridden.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eYou can override default credentials by utilizing the \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e, such as by loading a service account key file.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe provided code sample illustrates loading a service account key file using \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e to customize authentication.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eFor further information on authentication procedures, refer to the section on Authentication Components, which details the factory functions for creating \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e objects, as well as the Best Practices for managing service account keys.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]