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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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, specifically focusing on the \u003ccode\u003eDatastreamClient\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest release candidate version for the datastream documentation is 2.37.0-rc, with a range of available versions spanning from 2.11.0 up to 2.36.0.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eOverriding default credentials can be achieved by using the \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e, such as by loading a service account key file as demonstrated in the provided code example.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWhile overriding credentials with a service account key file is used as an example due to it's understandability, the provided link offers additional information regarding best practices for key file management.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eFor more details on creating \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e objects, users can refer to the "Authentication Components" documentation page.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]