Console is now able to be fully deployed through an IaC approach with the following additions to Console 1.25 and CLI 0.2.7.

Manage Cluster Connections

Manage your Console resource lifecycle with the addition of the KafkaCluster, KafkaConnectCluster and KsqlDBCluster objects to our IaC approach using the Conduktor CLI.

Checkout the example below and find the full definition at Console Resources Reference documentation.

---
apiVersion: console/v2
kind: KafkaCluster
metadata:
  name: cloud-kafka
spec:
  displayName: "Cloud Kafka"
  icon: "kafka"
  color: "#000000"
  bootstrapServers: "34.140.204.135:12092"
  properties:
    sasl.jaas.config: org.apache.kafka.common.security.plain.PlainLoginModule required username="admin" password="admin-secret";
    security.protocol: SASL_SSL
    sasl.mechanism: PLAIN
  schemaRegistry:
    url: http://34.140.204.135/registry/
    security:
      type: BasicAuth
      username: superUser
      password: superUser

Short lived token generation on startup

When spinning up Console, a token is needed to access the API. Previously this had to be done in the UI which would not allow full IaC. Now, we have the conduktor login command which leverages the admin credentials to generate an API token, and allow the rest of the commands you may need to startup. This is expanded upon in the docs.

Admin and Application Tokens

In addition to the startup token, you can now generate tokens for the appropriate scope, for admin and application level tokens. The docs will walk you through this.

Shareable Message Page

Individual messages can now be accessed from a unique URL! Now you can link directly to a specific Kafka message for review or investigation, be that for sharing with a teammate, or commenting on a Jira ticket.

From within the Consume page, select a message and use the 'Share' button to navigate to the standalone page. The standalone message page shows the key, value, metadata and headers in a single view. Switch between the JSON view or table view, and utilize jq for additional filtering of the value.

Large Messages Support

We have put a limit on the message sizes that are sent to the browser in the Consume page (100Kb). From now on, when a message is larger than this size, we'll provide you with a link to access the individual message - this mitigates performance issues and still provides a path for troubleshooting, and sharing, large messages.

Topic Catalog Details Page

Expose contextual documentation about your Kafka Topics that exist in your organization with the Topic Details page. This helps democratize data to enhance its understanding and usage, and facilitate collaboration through a shared knowledge base.

You can choose to open or lock editing of descriptions within the UI using specific annotations. Check the Topic Resource documentation for more information.

Audit Last Activity of Users

You can now audit the last activity date of users in Console.

From within the Settings > Users page, you will see a new column 'Last login'. Note that the user login event is also captured in the Audit Log.