Skip to main content

Topics: Given input topic / Given output topic

Topics are the entry points for producers (input) and consumers (output). You must declare a topic before referencing it in When or Then steps.

Given input topic​

Declares one or more Kafka topics that your test will produce messages to.

Given input topic
  | topicName   | topicAlias  | namespace | namespaceAlias |
  | orders-in   | orders-in   |           |                |
ColumnTypeRequiredDescription
topicNamestring✅Physical Kafka topic name (namespace prefixed automatically)
topicAliasstring✅Short name used in When steps
namespacestring❌Override namespace for this topic
namespaceAliasstring❌Reference a named namespace declared in Given namespaces

Given output topic​

Declares one or more Kafka topics that your test will consume and assert messages from.

Given output topic
  | topicName   | topicAlias  | namespace | namespaceAlias |
  | orders-out  | enriched    | myapp     |                |
ColumnTypeRequiredDescription
topicNamestring✅Physical Kafka topic name (namespace prefixed automatically)
topicAliasstring✅Short name used in Then steps
namespacestring❌Override namespace for this topic
namespaceAliasstring❌Reference a named namespace declared in Given namespaces
Input ≠ Output

KTestify enforces topic type at the context level. Passing an INPUT topic to a Then step throws a ConsumerException immediately. This prevents accidental off-by-one topic confusion.

Multiple topics in one declaration​

You can declare multiple topics in one step by adding extra DataTable rows:

Given output topic
  | topicName   | topicAlias |
  | orders-out  | orders     |
  | audit-out   | audit      |

Typical background​

Background:
  Given namespace
    | namespace |
    | myapp     |
  Given input topic
    | topicName | topicAlias |
    | orders-in | orders-in  |
  Given output topic
    | topicName  | topicAlias |
    | orders-out | orders-out |