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::tasks_v2::CloudTasksClient(
google::cloud::tasks_v2::MakeCloudTasksConnection(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complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-14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 provides a reference for overriding default authentication credentials when using Google Cloud client libraries.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe latest version available is 2.37.0-rc, with a comprehensive list of previous versions from 2.36.0 down to 2.11.0 for reference.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eClient libraries default to using Application Default Credentials for authentication, but users can override this by setting the \u003ccode\u003eUnifiedCredentialsOption\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe example shows how to load a service account key file to override the default credentials, while providing a link to a best practices guide.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eAdditional information regarding the creation of credentials objects is available in the Authentication Components section.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]