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::kms_inventory_v1::KeyDashboardServiceClient(
google::cloud::kms_inventory_v1::MakeKeyDashboardServiceConnection(
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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 document provides information on 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 method is \u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/docs/authentication#adc\"\u003eApplication Default Credentials\u003c/a\u003e, but you can override this using the \u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/cpp/docs/reference/common/latest/structgoogle_1_1cloud_1_1UnifiedCredentialsOption.html\"\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest version of the documentation provided is 2.37.0-rc, and links to documentation for a wide range of versions, from 2.10.1 up to the latest, are available.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe example in this content demonstrates how to explicitly load a service account key file to authenticate, and it provides links to examples for other \u003ccode\u003e*Client\u003c/code\u003e classes.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eIt also references the \u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/best-practices-for-managing-service-account-keys\"\u003eBest practices for managing service account keys\u003c/a\u003e guide and \u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/cpp/docs/reference/common/latest/group__guac.html\"\u003eAuthentication Components\u003c/a\u003e for more information.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]