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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eThis document lists available versions of the Secret Manager C++ client library, ranging from the latest release candidate \u003ccode\u003e2.37.0-rc\u003c/code\u003e down to version \u003ccode\u003e2.10.1\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe C++ client libraries use Application Default Credentials for authentication, but you can override this behavior.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eTo override the default authentication, you can use the \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e, such as explicitly loading a service account key file, shown in the included code snippet.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ccode\u003eAuthentication Components\u003c/code\u003e section provides more details on creating \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e objects.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eBest practices for managing service accounts keys can be found in the provided link, which should be consulted for more information.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]
