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::shell_v1::CloudShellServiceClient(
google::cloud::shell_v1::MakeCloudShellServiceConnection(options));
}
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-04-02 UTC."],[[["The latest version available is 2.37.0-rc, with numerous other versions from 2.36.0 down to 2.11.0 also documented."],["Client libraries generally authenticate using Application Default Credentials, but this can be overridden when needed."],["You can override default authentication by providing the `UnifiedCredentialsOption`, such as loading a service account key file, as demonstrated in the provided example code."],["For detailed information on creating `google::cloud::Credentials` objects, refer to the \"Authentication Components\" section."],["Managing service account keys will require you to refer to the \"Best practices for managing service account keys\" guide."]]],[]]
