Log in to your Confluent Cloud account from the Confluent for VS Code extension by clicking on "Sign in to Confluent Cloud", and explore your Confluent Cloud resources within VS Code.
Note
If you would like to connect to your Apache Kafka® cluster on Confluent Cloud and/or Confluent Cloud Schema Registry cluster using an API Key (user account or service account), Mutual TLS, or OAuth/OIDC, go here to understand how to do this by using the extension.
Confluent for VS Code offers project templates designed to accelerate your development process. These ready-to-use templates are tailored for common development patterns, enabling you to launch new projects quickly with minimal configuration.
Confluent will continue to add new templates as well as improving existing ones, but if you find bugs or issues in existing templates, or you have proposals for new templates that could benefit the broader community, please file an issue or start a discussion.
Note
Pre-requisites: You must have Docker Engine (version v24.0 or later) installed on your machine. Follow the instructions here to install Docker Engine.
Using only a single click, you can easily start a Kafka and Confluent Schema Registry container on your local machine by using Docker.
- Click the green play button next to "Local" to choose whether you want to start Kafka, or Kafka and Schema Registry together.
- Enter the number of brokers you want in the Kafka cluster. This determines the maximum replication factor for the Kafka topics.
- Click OK, and once the resources become available, you can leverage all the features of the extension to work with the resources you just started.
Currently, the following Docker images are used:
- confluent-local for starting a Kafka cluster and Kafka REST server.
- cp-schema-registry for Schema Registry
Note
Confluent plans to expand support for starting Local Resources using other Kafka Docker images, such as apache/kafka, Warpstream, and more.
Click the 
icon next to the topic name to open the Message Viewer, which enables
searching and exploring messages in a topic. Within Message Viewer, you can:
- page through and search for specific values within the list of all the messages
- double-click a single message to explore the message headers, key and value encoded into JSON, along with additional metadata about the key and/or value schema that may have been used for deserialization
- pause and resume consuming at any time
- see aggregate counts of messages over time from the histogram view and brush to filter messages by timestamp
- toggle partitions on/off to show/hide messages from specific partitions
With Confluent for VS Code, you can produce messages to your Kafka topics, with or without a key/value schema.
- Prepare a JSON file containing message
headers(optional),keyandvalueas top-level fields. - Click the produce icon
next to the topic name to open the Produce Message quickpick flow. - When you're prompted, choose a JSON file containing message
headers,keyandvalue. - Next, choose whether to produce the message with/without a key/value schema.
- Click OK to produce the message.
- You will be notified of whether the produce was successful or not. If successful, you can open the Message Viewer (click the
icon against the topic) to inspect the message you just produced.
Example of JSON file for producing message
{
"headers": [
{
"key": "task.generation",
"value": "350"
},
{
"key": "task.id",
"value": "0"
},
{
"key": "current.iteration",
"value": "39067914"
}
],
"key": 39067914,
"value": {
"ordertime": 1492152554633,
"orderid": 39067914,
"itemid": "Item_5",
"orderunits": 7.508419592693289,
"address": {
"city": "City_84",
"state": "State_85",
"zipcode": 83204
}
}
}If the Kafka topic you want to produce a message to does not use TopicNameStrategy, open the extension settings, find "Confluent -> Topic -> Produce Messages -> Schemas: Use Topic Name Strategy", and disable this setting. When you're prompted, select the Subject Name Strategy and the subject name while going through the Produce Message quickpick flow.
If you want to produce a message using a schema version earlier than the latest, open the extension settings and find "Confluent -> Topic -> Produce Messages -> Schemas: Allow Older Versions", and enable it. When you're prompted, choose which schema version to use while going through the Produce Message quickpick flow.
The Schemas view displays all the schemas available for the current Schema Registry cluster selected.
Schemas are also shown in the Topics view by expanding a topic item if the subject name follows
either TopicNameStrategy or TopicRecordNameStrategy schema naming strategies and you have the appropriate permissions.
You can view schema definitions by expanding the schema subject to list all schema versions, then clicking on the specific schema version. You can also easily "View Latest Schema" by clicking the code file icon next to the subject.
You can create new schemas or update schemas and subject-bindings by creating or opening an .avsc,
.proto, or .json file, then using the Cloud Upload icon in the upper-right of the buffer
titlebar to begin the process of selecting a schema registry and subject to bind to. You can either
bind to new subjects or provide a revised/evolved schema for an existing subject to establish a new
version.
Search the marketplace for extensions to validate your Avro, JSON schema, or Protobuf syntax as needed.
Confluent for VS Code supports connecting to any Kafka API-compatible cluster and any Confluent Schema Registry API-compatible server.
Get started by clicking the "+" icon in the Resources panel and selecting "Enter manually" in the dropdown. This opens a new tab containing a Connection form. Configure your connection by filling in the form fields.
Test the connection by clicking the Test button at the bottom of the form. If VS Code fails to connect, an appropriate error message is displayed. If the test succeeds, click the Save button to save the connection as a resource in the Resources view. Note that you may Save the connection details regardless of using the Test functionality.
The following section shows the connection form fields and their functions.
| Form field | Description |
|---|---|
| Connection Name | An easy-to-remember name to reference this connection in the Resources view |
| Connection Type | Choose from Apache Kafka®, Confluent Cloud, Confluent Platform, Warpstream, and Other. This is used to narrow down the various fields available under Kafka cluster and Schema Registry. |
| Form field | Description |
|---|---|
| Bootstrap Server(s) | One or more host:port pairs to use for establishing the initial connection (use a comma-separated list for more than one server). |
| Authentication Type | Choose from:
|
| SSL/TLS enabled checkbox | Use SSL/TLS encryption communication for data in transit between VS Code and the Kafka brokers. |
| TLS Configuration | Additional TLS configuration, you may expand the TLS Configuration section and fill out Key Store and Trust Store details. |
| Form field | Description |
|---|---|
| URL | The URL of the Schema Registry to use with the Kafka Cluster |
| Authentication Type | Choose from:
|
| SSL/TLS enabled checkbox | Use SSL/TLS encryption communication for data in transit between VS Code and the Kafka brokers. |
| TLS Configuration | Additional TLS configuration, you may expand the TLS Configuration section and fill out Key Store and Trust Store details. |
Note
Confluent Cloud Schema Registry does not support self-managed certificates for TLS encryption or mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication. Confluent Cloud employs TLS certificates from Let's Encrypt, a trusted Certificate Authority (CA). For more information, see Manage TLS Certificates.
| Form field | Description |
|---|---|
| Verify Server Hostname | Enable verification of the Kafka/Schema Registry host name matching the Distinguished Name (DN) in the broker's certificate. |
| Key Store Configuration | Certificate used by Kafka/Schema Registry to authenticate the client. This is used to configure mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication. |
| Trust Store Configuration | Certificates for verifying SSL/TLS connections to Kafka/Schema Registry. This is required if the Kafka/Schema Registry server use a self-signed or a non-public Certificate Authority (CA). |
Certificate used by Kafka/Schema Registry to authenticate the client. This is used to configure mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication.
| Form field | Description |
|---|---|
| Path | The path of the Key Store file. |
| Password | The store password for the Key Store file. Key Store password is not supported for PEM format. |
| Key Password | The password of the private key in the Key Store file. |
| Type | The file format of the Key Store file. Choose from PEM, PKCS12 and JKS. |
Certificates for verifying SSL/TLS connections to Kafka/Schema Registry. This is required if Kafka/Schema Registry use a self-signed or a non-public Certificate Authority (CA).
| Form field | Description |
|---|---|
| Path | The path of the Trust Store file. |
| Password | The password for the Trust Store file. If a password is not set, the configured Trust Store file will still be used, but integrity checking of the Trust Store file is disabled. Trust Store password is not supported for PEM format. |
| Key Password | The password of the private key in the Key Store file. |
| Type | The file format of the Trust Store file. Choose from PEM, PKCS12 and JKS. |
Note
Confluent Cloud employs TLS certificates from Let's Encrypt, a trusted Certificate Authority (CA). For more information, see Manage TLS Certificates. Confluent Cloud does not support self-managed certificates for TLS encryption.
Confluent for VS Code supports authenticating to Kafka with most of the commonly used SASL authentication mechanisms.
- SASL/PLAIN
- Username & Password (SASL/PLAIN)
- API Credentials (SASL/PLAIN)
- SASL/SCRAM: We support both
SCRAM-SHA-256andSCRAM-SHA-512. - SASL/OAUTHBEARER
- Kerberos (SASL/GSSAPI)
- mTLS (Mutual TLS)
Note
To use mTLS (Mutual TLS) authentication, expand the TLS Configuration section and fill out the Key Store Configuration options.
Confluent for VS Code supports connecting to Schema Registry with most of the commonly used HTTP authentication mechanisms.
- Username & Password
- API Credentials
- OAuth
- mTLS (Mutual TLS)
Note
To use mTLS (Mutual TLS) authentication, expand the TLS Configuration section and fill out the Key Store Configuration options.
You can export the connection details to a local file by clicking the socket-download icon next to the connection. Note that the file may contain sensitive information like API keys, secrets, and local file paths. Use caution when saving and sharing connection files since they may contain secrets.
You can import connection details by clicking the "+" icon in the Resources panel, and select "Import from file" in the dropdown. This opens a file browser and you may then choose the desired connection details JSON file. Edit the connection details as desired and click "Test" or "Save".