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::securesourcemanager_v1::SecureSourceManagerClient(
google::cloud::securesourcemanager_v1::
MakeSecureSourceManagerConnection(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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 page provides documentation for overriding default authentication credentials when using the SecureSourceManager client library, with the latest release candidate being version 2.37.0-rc.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe client libraries typically use Application Default Credentials for authentication, but you can override this by utilizing the UnifiedCredentialsOption.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe provided code example illustrates how to override the default credentials by loading a service account key file, demonstrating a simplified approach for educational purposes.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThere is documentation for multiple versions of the secure source manager, starting from version 2.18.0 up to 2.37.0-rc.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe best practices for managing service account keys can be found in a separate guide, linked on this page.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]
