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::servicecontrol_v1::QuotaControllerClient(
google::cloud::servicecontrol_v1::MakeQuotaControllerConnection(
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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eThis page provides documentation for overriding default authentication credentials when using Google Cloud C++ client libraries for Service Control.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest release is version 2.37.0-rc, and the documentation covers a range of versions from 2.11.0 up to the latest.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eUsers can override default authentication by utilizing the \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e and supplying a service account key file.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eExamples are provided for \u003ccode\u003eQuotaControllerClient\u003c/code\u003e, and \u003ccode\u003eServiceControllerClient\u003c/code\u003e classes to demonstrate how to load a service account key.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe documentation references best practices for managing service account keys and provides links for further details on authentication components.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]