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::securitycenter_v1::SecurityCenterClient(
google::cloud::securitycenter_v1::MakeSecurityCenterConnection(
options));
}
Follow these links to find examples for other *Client classes:
[[["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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-22 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eThis page provides documentation for overriding the default authentication credentials used by the client libraries when interacting with Google Cloud Services.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest release candidate version is 2.37.0-rc, and a list of all previous versions, down to 2.11.0, are available, each linked to its respective documentation.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe default authentication uses Application Default Credentials, but can be overridden using \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e, as demonstrated by loading a service account key file.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eExamples for overriding credentials can be found for both \u003ccode\u003esecuritycenter_v1::SecurityCenterClient\u003c/code\u003e and \u003ccode\u003esecuritycenter_v2::SecurityCenterClient\u003c/code\u003e classes.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eRefer to the "Best practices for managing service account keys" guide and the "Authentication Components" documentation for more information on service account keys and \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e objects.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]
