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::edgenetwork_v1::EdgeNetworkClient(
google::cloud::edgenetwork_v1::MakeEdgeNetworkConnection(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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 document details how to override the default authentication credentials used by client libraries when interacting with Google Cloud Services.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe default authentication uses Application Default Credentials, but you can override this behavior using \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eAn example demonstrates loading a service account key file to explicitly set credentials.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest available release is version 2.37.0-rc, with a number of previous versions listed in the content, from 2.24.0 up to 2.36.0.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eRefer to the provided links for best practices on managing service account keys and for more details on creating \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e objects.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]