Apache Kafka

Right-click in the tree ▸ Add ▸ Kafka request.

Shared configuration

Field	Role
URL	The comma-separated broker list: hote1:9092,hote2:9092 — the whole string is resolved by Handlebars before being split
Client identifier	The clientId announced to the brokers
Topic	The topic, whatever the mode
Mode	produce, consume or browse

Authentication

Field	Values
SASL mechanism	none, plain, scram-sha-256, scram-sha-512
SASL user / SASL password	The password accepts a Secret-typed value
TLS	Toggled independently — a TLS broker without SASL works with the none mechanism

produce mode

Key, value, record headers and, optionally, partition. Without an explicit partition, the client library’s default partitioner applies. The response returns the written record’s metadata: topic, partition, offset.

consume mode

Field	Role
Group	The consumer’s groupId
Starting offset	earliest, latest or specific
Specific offset	A string — Kafka offsets are 64-bit integers
Partitions	A client-side filter: partition assignment is still done by the group

browse mode

Inspects a partition without a consumer group: Restorm takes a bounded number of messages from it then disconnects. The partition is mandatory in this mode.

This is the right tool for looking at what is in a topic without creating a group or moving an offset.

In a scenario

• Kafka produce — a single-shot action, returns the record’s metadata;
• Kafka consume — subscribes through the consumer group and emits one event per message;
• Kafka close — stops consuming.

See Connections and streams.

Code snippets

Five targets: JavaScript (kafkajs, for producing and consuming) and kcat (produce, consume, inspect without a group).