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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 provides documentation for overriding default authentication credentials in the Google Cloud C++ client libraries, specifically showing version 2.31.0 of the language library.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe content demonstrates how to override the Application Default Credentials (ADC) by using the \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e to load a service account key file.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eExamples are provided for \u003ccode\u003elanguage_v1::LanguageServiceClient\u003c/code\u003e and \u003ccode\u003elanguage_v2::LanguageServiceClient\u003c/code\u003e illustrating how to override authentication for these specific client classes.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe documentation includes links to additional resources, such as best practices for managing service account keys and a section on authentication components for creating credentials objects.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest release candidate is version 2.37.0-rc and a comprehensive list of releases from 2.37.0-rc down to 2.11.0 are provided in the release history.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]