Usage Documentation

1. Adding your first Cluster

To begin, you need to tell KafkaLens where your Kafka brokers are located.

1. Click the Edit Clusters button in the sidebar.
2. Click Add Cluster.
3. Enter a friendly name and your bootstrap servers (e.g., localhost:9092).
4. Click Save.

2. Navigation

The sidebar contains all your configured clusters. Click a cluster to connect. Once connected, you can browse:

• Topics: All available topics in the cluster.
• Partitions: Drill down into specific partitions to see message distribution.

Browsing Messages

Double-click a topic or partition to open a new data tab.

• Fetch: Click "Load" to fetch the most recent messages.
• Seek: Use the offset controls to jump to a specific point in time or a specific offset.

Message Inspection

Select any message to view its details in the side panel. KafkaLens provides specialized formatters:

• JSON: Pretty-prints JSON payloads for easy reading.
• String: Displays the raw UTF-8 string.
• Hex: Perfect for debugging binary or proprietary formats.

Saving Messages

Found a message you need to keep? Right-click any message in the list and select Save Message. This will export the full message (including headers and metadata) into a .klm file.

Filtering

Use the search bar in the message view to filter through loaded messages. You can use simple text matching or advanced boolean logic (e.g., error && !timeout).