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::functions_v1::CloudFunctionsServiceClient(
google::cloud::functions_v1::MakeCloudFunctionsServiceConnection(
options));
}
Follow these links to find examples for other *Client classes:
[[["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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 C++ client libraries.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest release candidate version is 2.37.0-rc, with a list of prior versions available for reference, starting with version 2.36.0, continuing back to version 2.11.0.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eUsers can override the default authentication by using \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e and may load a service account key file to do so.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eExamples for \u003ccode\u003efunctions_v1::CloudFunctionsServiceClient\u003c/code\u003e and \u003ccode\u003efunctions_v2::FunctionServiceClient\u003c/code\u003e are available to demonstrate service account credential overrides.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eFor more details on credential management, refer to the "Best practices for managing service account keys" guide and the "Authentication Components" page.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]