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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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\u003eThis page provides documentation for overriding default authentication credentials when using Google Cloud client libraries, with a focus on C++.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest release candidate version available for the datastream is 2.37.0-rc, and a range of previous versions are also accessible, down to 2.11.0.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe example provided demonstrates how to explicitly load a service account key file for authentication using the \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eBy default, client libraries utilize Application Default Credentials (ADC), but users can override this behavior as demonstrated.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe reference links provided cover managing service account keys and the factory functions to create credential objects.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]