googleapis JWT client built with positional arguments is silently unauthenticated

401 or 403 on every call from a service account

Verified 2026-07-05 · Confirmed by 0 builders · Trust 50/100

Cause

Newer googleapis versions expect the JWT constructor to take a single options object. Positional arguments are accepted without error but produce a client with no credentials.

Fix

Pass an options object.

Apply

new google.auth.JWT({ email: sa.client_email, key: sa.private_key, scopes: ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/spreadsheets'] })

Affects: googleapis for Node v173 and later, July 2026

Have your agent know this before it fails

claude mcp add --transport http footgun https://getfootgun.com/api/mcp