kafui

Kafui

A k9s inspired terminal ui for kaf
It uses the same configuration file as kaf so you can use your existing kaf configuration to browse between kafkas.

Features

All demos below run against the built-in mock data source (kafui --mock), so you can reproduce every one of them without a broker. The .tape sources live in vhs/ and are rendered with VHS (vhs vhs/<feature>.tape).

Cluster management & dashboard

Multi-cluster overview with health status, version, broker/partition counts, an offline-only filter, on-demand refresh (r), an offline-only toggle (i), and connection validation from the actions menu. Reach it from anywhere with :.

Broker management

Live broker list with per-broker stats and disk usage, plus a broker:<id> detail page with Log Dirs / Configs / Metrics tabs (inline config editing and replica log-dir reassignment behind confirmation).

Topic management

Rich topic list (partitions, replication, out-of-sync replicas, on-disk size), sorting, internal-topic visibility, CSV export, and create / clone / delete / recreate / purge flows with confirmation.

Message browsing & producing

Browse messages with full metadata, headers, and lazily decoded payloads; seek by offset/timestamp, filter by partition or a smart-filter expression, mask sensitive fields, export, produce, and reproduce a browsed message.

Consumer groups & offsets

Group list enriched with state, members, topics, coordinator, and total lag, plus a detail page with topic-grouped partition lag, auto-refresh, and reset / delete flows.

Schema registry

Browse subjects, versions, and schema content with syntax highlighting and a side-by-side version diff; register new versions (with a compatibility check), delete, and set compatibility — all behind confirmation.

Kafka Connect

Connectors and connect clusters with live status, and a connector detail page (Overview / Tasks / Config / Topics) with lifecycle actions — pause, resume, stop, restart, delete, reset offsets — behind confirmation.

Streaming SQL (ksqlDB)

Streams and tables overview and an interactive query editor that streams SELECT ... EMIT CHANGES results row-by-row.

ACLs & client quotas

ACL bindings with pattern types, resource/pattern filters, and create / convenience forms (custom, or consumer/producer/stream expansion), plus CSV export & declarative sync. A sibling client-quotas resource (: then "quotas") views and edits quota entities.

Metrics & monitoring

Live message/throughput rates with unicode sparklines from an in-process history, an optional Prometheus query/graph surface, and an opt-in Prometheus exposition endpoint (--metrics-listen). Reach it with :.

Authentication, RBAC & audit

Per-cluster read-only mode (--read-only), local permission profiles enforced at the datasource boundary, a JSONL audit log, and an effective-permissions ("whoami") view. Every mutating operation is gated and audited.

Application configuration

A read-only view of the effective, merged configuration with secrets redacted, build info, and per-cluster details. A setup wizard (gated on dynamicConfigEnabled) adds, edits, and validates clusters. Both are reached with :.

UI shell & cross-cutting UX

A consistent shell across every page: full help overlay (?), a contextual hint bar whose entries are clickable, auto/dark/light theming, confirmation dialogs, notifications, deep-linking, and error pages. One key vocabulary throughout — see the controls spec.

Command palette

: opens a palette listing every destination and every application-level command, found by typing part of its name. It replaces the per-screen jump keys the app used to have, and it teaches the direct shortcuts by showing each entry's key beside it. Commands the active cluster or your permissions do not allow stay listed but disabled, with the reason — so you learn the feature exists rather than wondering where it went.

The companion surface is a (or right-click), which opens the same style of menu for whatever row is selected: everything you can do to it, each with its key and a one-letter mnemonic.

Scales to your terminal

Tables flex to whatever width they get: the text columns grow to fill a wide pane and truncate rather than wrap when you shrink it, so the same views stay usable from an 80-column split all the way up to a full-screen terminal. The same run is recorded below at three sizes.

Re-record with ./vhs/render-responsive.sh.

Usage

$ kafui --help
Explore different kafka broker in a k9s fashion with quick switches between topics, consumer groups and brokers

Usage:
  kafui [flags]
  kafui [command]

Available Commands:
  get         Non-interactive resource listings (machine-readable)
  health      Probe cluster (and schema registry) connectivity; exit 0 if healthy
  version     Print kafui version and build information

Flags:
  -b, --brokers strings          Comma-separated list of broker host:port pairs (overrides config)
  -c, --cluster string           Set the active cluster/context by name
      --config string            config file (default is $HOME/.kaf/config)
  -h, --help                     help for kafui
      --metrics-listen string    Serve the current metrics snapshot in Prometheus exposition format on this address (e.g. :9090); default off
      --mock                     Enable mock mode: Display mock data to test various functions without a real kafka broker
      --read-only                Treat every cluster as read-only: deny all altering operations
      --resource string          Open the main page pre-switched to a resource
      --schema-registry string   Schema registry URL (overrides config)
      --topic string             Open the given topic directly on startup
  -v, --verbose                  Enable verbose sarama logging

Install

Winget

On windows you can install kafui using the following

winget install kafui

Homebrew

If you're using Homebrew on macOS or Linux, you can easily install kafui using the following commands:

brew tap benny93/kafui
brew install kafui

This will tap into the benny93/kafui repository and install the kafui package on your system.

Downloader Script

Install via downloader script:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Benny93/kafui/main/godownloader.sh | BINDIR=$HOME/bin bash

Go install

1. Set Environment Variables (For Unix-like Systems):

   Make sure you have the GOPATH environment variable set. Add the following lines to your shell configuration file (e.g., ~/.bashrc for Bash, ~/.zshrc for Zsh):

   echo 'export GOPATH=$(go env GOPATH)' >> ~/.bashrc
   echo 'export PATH="$PATH:$GOPATH/bin"' >> ~/.bashrc
   

   For Bash, use ~/.bash_profile instead of ~/.bashrc.

   For Zsh, use ~/.zshrc.

   These commands ensure that the GOPATH and GOPATH/bin are added to your PATH environment variable, allowing you to execute Go binaries globally.

2. Set Environment Variables (For Windows):

   Open Command Prompt as an administrator and run the following commands:

   setx GOPATH "%USERPROFILE%\go"
   setx PATH "%PATH%;%GOPATH%\bin"
   

   These commands set the GOPATH environment variable to %USERPROFILE%\go and add %GOPATH%\bin to the PATH environment variable, respectively. After running these commands, you might need to restart your Command Prompt session for the changes to take effect.

3. Install via Go:

   Once the environment variables are set, you can install the package using go install. Run the following command:

   go install github.com/Benny93/kafui@latest
   

   This command fetches the latest version of the kafui package from the specified GitHub repository and installs it in your GOPATH/bin directory. After installation, you can execute the kafui command from anywhere in your terminal.

Configuration

First setup the config file at $HOME/.kaf/config using kaf

kaf config add-cluster local -b localhost:9092

replace localhost:9092 with your broker. If you use a schema registry open the config file and add the required configurations. See https://github.com/birdayz/kaf?tab=readme-ov-file#configuration

Your configuration may look something like this:

current-cluster: local
clusteroverride: ""
clusters:
- name: local
  version: ""
  brokers:
  - localhost:9092
  SASL: null
  TLS: null
  security-protocol: ""
  schema-registry-url: localhost:8085
  schema-registry-credentials: null

Test coverage

Created with go-cover-treemap