rpk topic create

Create topics.

Topics created with this command will have the same number of partitions, replication factor, and key/value configs.

For more information about topics, see rpk topic describe.

Usage

rpk topic create [TOPICS...] [flags]
bash

Flags

Value Type Description

-d, --dry

-

Dry run: validate the topic creation request; do not create topics.

-h, --help

-

Help for create.

-p, --partitions

int32

Number of partitions to create per topic; -1 defaults to the cluster property default_topic_partitions (default -1).

-r, --replicas

int16

Replication factor (must be odd); -1 defaults to the cluster’s default_topic_replications (default -1). In Redpanda Cloud, the replication factor is set to 3.

-c, --topic-config

string (repeatable)

Topic properties can be set by using <key>=<value>. For example -c cleanup.policy=compact. This flag is repeatable, so you can set multiple parameters in a single command.

--config

string

Redpanda or rpk config file; default search paths are /var/lib/redpanda/.config/rpk/rpk.yaml, $PWD/redpanda.yaml, and /etc/redpanda/redpanda.yaml.

-X, --config-opt

stringArray

Override rpk configuration settings. See rpk -X or execute rpk -X help for inline detail or rpk -X list for terser detail.

--profile

string

Profile to use. See rpk profile for more details.

-v, --verbose

-

Enable verbose logging.
For the full list of properties, see Topic Properties

Examples

Create a topic

Create a topic named my-topic:

rpk topic create my-topic
bash

Output:

TOPIC     STATUS
my-topic  OK
bash

Create multiple topics

Create two topics (my-topic-1, my-topic-2) at the same time with one command:

rpk topic create my-topic-1 my-topic-2
bash

Output:

TOPIC       STATUS
my-topic-1  OK
my-topic-2  OK
bash

Set a topic property

Create topic my-topic-3 with the topic property cleanup.policy=compact:

rpk topic create my-topic-3 -c cleanup.policy=compact
bash

Output:

TOPIC       STATUS
my-topic-3  OK
bash

Create topic with multiple partitions

Create topic my-topic-4 with 20 partitions:

rpk topic create my-topic-4 -p 20
bash

Output:

TOPIC       STATUS
my-topic-4  OK
bash

Create topic with multiple replicas

The replication factor must be a positive, odd number (such as 3), and it must be equal to or less than the number of available brokers.

Create topic my-topic-5 with 3 replicas:

rpk topic create my-topic-5 -r 3
bash

Output:

TOPIC       STATUS
my-topic-5  OK
bash

Combine flags

You can combine flags in any way you want. This example creates two topics, topic-1 and topic-2, each with 20 partitions, 3 replicas, and the cleanup policy set to compact:

rpk topic create -c cleanup.policy=compact -r 3 -p 20 topic-1 topic-2
bash

Output:

TOPIC       STATUS
topic-1  OK
topic-2  OK
bash