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::optimization_v1::FleetRoutingClient(
google::cloud::optimization_v1::MakeFleetRoutingConnection(options));
}
[[["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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 outlines how to override the default authentication credentials used by client libraries when interacting with Google Cloud Services.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest version available for reference is version 2.37.0-rc, with numerous other prior versions also documented, starting from 2.36.0, down to 2.11.0.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eOverriding default credentials can be accomplished using \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e, as demonstrated by loading a service account key file in an example.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe document provides a link to the best practices guide for managing service account keys and another link for more information on factory functions to create credentials objects.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]