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::developerconnect_v1::DeveloperConnectClient(
google::cloud::developerconnect_v1::MakeDeveloperConnectConnection(
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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 for the DeveloperConnect documentation is 2.37.0-rc, with previous versions ranging from 2.36.0 down to 2.27.0 also available.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eClient libraries default to using Application Default Credentials for authenticating with Google Cloud Services, but this can be overridden if necessary.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eYou can override the default credentials by using the \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e, such as explicitly loading a service account key file as demonstrated in the example code.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe provided example is designed for ease of understanding; for more details on handling service account keys, refer to the best practices guide.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eFor additional details on creating \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e objects, refer to the Authentication Components documentation.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]