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::secretmanager_v1::SecretManagerServiceClient(
google::cloud::secretmanager_v1::MakeSecretManagerServiceConnection(
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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-07-02 UTC."],[[["This document provides versioned documentation for the Secret Manager C++ client library, ranging from version 2.10.1 up to the latest release candidate, 2.37.0-rc."],["The client libraries default to using Application Default Credentials for Google Cloud Service authentication, but this can be overridden."],["You can override the default authentication by utilizing the UnifiedCredentialsOption and providing custom credentials, such as loading a service account key file."],["The document illustrates how to explicitly load a service account key file as an example of overriding the default credentials, through the use of an associated code snippet."],["The \"Authentication Components\" section provides additional information for creating `google::cloud::Credentials` objects."]]],[]]
