Your first session

Find your way from cluster health to individual records.

Read the cluster#

Open the quickstart UI and choose the local cluster. Start at Overview: check broker availability, partition sync, traffic, storage, and consumer lag. Use the Traffic and Storage tabs for a more focused view.

Inspect a topic#

Open Topics and choose a seeded topic. Its overview, partitions, consumers, and settings explain how the topic is configured and who is reading it. Open the message browser to see individual records.

Find a record#

Choose the key and value formats that match the topic. Start from earliest to inspect retained history, latest to follow new records, or an offset/timestamp for a known point. Expand a row to inspect its key, value, and headers. Copy a payload with the explicit copy controls.

Try a field filter against a visible sample before using it on a browse. Pagination and infinite-scroll loading are available for different reading styles.

Follow an operational question#

• Growing lag: open consumer groups and inspect partitions and members.
• Payload trouble: inspect schemas and compatibility.
• Pipeline failure: open Connect and inspect task state.
• Cluster signal: read alerts and acknowledge events after review.

Before a write#

Check the selected environment and topic. Read-only clusters and insufficient permissions block writes. For destructive actions, review the proposed plan and confirmation. A local replay still appends real records to its destination; understand its boundaries before copying.