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Watcher: And record should (not) appear in topic

The watcher steps don't compare record content, they simply verify that at least one record (optionally matching a key) does or does not appear on a topic within the read timeout window.

Record should appear, positive assertion​

And record should appear in topic
  | topicAlias | topicType | consumerReadTimeout | consumerDeltaTime |
  | orders-out | raw       | 15                  | 60                |

Fails if no record appears within consumerReadTimeout seconds.

Record should not appear, negative assertion​

And record should not appear in topic
  | topicAlias | topicType | consumerReadTimeout | consumerDeltaTime |
  | orders-out | raw       | 10                  | 30                |

Passes only if no record appears within consumerReadTimeout seconds. Use this to assert that a message is filtered out or not produced by your pipeline.

Column reference​

ColumnTypeRequiredDescription
topicAliasstring✅Alias of a declared output topic
topicTypestring✅raw or avro, determines the deserialiser
consumerReadTimeoutinteger❌Max seconds to wait (or confirm absence)
consumerDeltaTimeinteger❌How far back (seconds) to seek
Choosing the right timeout for negative assertions

For should not appear, set consumerReadTimeout to a value that is long enough to be confident nothing will arrive, but short enough to not slow your suite down unnecessarily. A value between 5 and 10 seconds is usually a good starting point.

Multiple rows, same topic​

Both watcher steps support multiple rows, which is useful for checking presence or absence of several distinct keys on the same topic in one step. Rows are validated sequentially, in order, and share one pinned referenceTimestamp so their seek windows don't drift. Every row must target the same physical topic. Mixing topics throws TopicMismatchException before any consumer call is made:

And record should not appear in topic
  | topicAlias | topicType | expectedRecordKey | consumerReadTimeout |
  | orders-out | raw       | order-invalid-1   | 10                  |
  | orders-out | raw       | order-invalid-2   | 10                  |

See Multi-row DataTables for the full rules.

Example: filtering scenario​

Scenario: Invalid orders are filtered out
  When record from file is sent
    | topicName | file              | recordKey   |
    | orders-in | order-invalid.json | order-invalid |
  And record should not appear in topic
    | topicAlias | topicType | consumerReadTimeout |
    | orders-out | raw       | 10                  |