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::notebooks_v1::ManagedNotebookServiceClient(
google::cloud::notebooks_v1::MakeManagedNotebookServiceConnection(
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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 client libraries, specifically focusing on how to load a service account key file.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest release candidate version is 2.37.0-rc, and a range of previous versions from 2.11.0 to 2.36.0 are also accessible.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eBy leveraging the \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e, users can explicitly set authentication by providing service account key details.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eExamples for overriding authentication are available for \u003ccode\u003enotebooks_v1::ManagedNotebookServiceClient\u003c/code\u003e, \u003ccode\u003enotebooks_v1::NotebookServiceClient\u003c/code\u003e, and \u003ccode\u003enotebooks_v2::NotebookServiceClient\u003c/code\u003e classes.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe page also references additional documentation for the \u003ccode\u003eAuthentication Components\u003c/code\u003e and service account key best practices.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]