Unless otherwise configured, the client libraries useApplication Default Credentialsto 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 theUnifiedCredentialsOptionThe 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::orgpolicy_v2::OrgPolicyClient(
google::cloud::orgpolicy_v2::MakeOrgPolicyConnection(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 2025-09-04 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eThe latest release candidate version is 2.37.0-rc, with version 2.21.0 being the base version presented on this page.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe client libraries use Application Default Credentials for authentication with Google Cloud Services by default, but this can be overridden.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eYou can override the default credentials by providing the UnifiedCredentialsOption, such as loading a service account key file, as demonstrated in the provided code example.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eFor detailed information on managing service account keys, refer to the "Best practices for managing service account keys" guide.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe "Authentication Components" section provides further information on creating \u003ccode\u003egoogle::cloud::Credentials\u003c/code\u003e objects.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]