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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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\u003eThe webpage provides documentation for various versions of the Secret Manager client library, ranging from version 2.10.1 to the latest release candidate 2.37.0-rc.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe client libraries primarily use Application Default Credentials for authentication with Google Cloud Services, but it allows for overriding this default.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eAuthentication credentials can be overridden by using the \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e to explicitly load a service account key file, as demonstrated in the provided example code.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe webpage directs users to additional resources, including best practices for managing service account keys and the Authentication Components documentation for more details on creating \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e objects.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]
