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::language_v1::LanguageServiceClient(
google::cloud::language_v1::MakeLanguageServiceConnection(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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 details how to override the default Application Default Credentials (ADC) for authenticating with Google Cloud Services using the \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest version of the documentation provided is 2.37.0-rc, with a range of previous versions listed down to 2.11.0, and version 2.19.0 being specifically called out within this documentation.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eYou can override default credentials by explicitly loading a service account key file, as demonstrated in the provided code example using \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::MakeServiceAccountCredentials\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eExamples for overriding authentication are available for \u003ccode\u003elanguage_v1::LanguageServiceClient\u003c/code\u003e and \u003ccode\u003elanguage_v2::LanguageServiceClient\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe provided links offer further details on managing service account keys and understanding the factory functions to create \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e objects.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]