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::serviceusage_v1::ServiceUsageClient(
google::cloud::serviceusage_v1::MakeServiceUsageConnection(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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 outlines the available versions of the service usage documentation, ranging from version 2.11.0 up to the latest release candidate, 2.37.0-rc.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe client libraries default to using Application Default Credentials for authentication with Google Cloud Services, but can be overridden.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eUsers can override the default authentication by providing a UnifiedCredentialsOption, such as explicitly loading a service account key file.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe example shows how to load a service account key file using \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::UnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e and \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::MakeServiceAccountCredentials\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eFor detailed information about creating \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e objects, refer to the Authentication Components section in the documentation.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]