Kafka

This series walks through Kafka on a real local setup: what it is and why it is designed that way, when to use it, how to bring up a working single-node cluster with one docker run, and finally how to verify the basics with a Golang project.

• Kafka in brief, and running it locally: the core model (topic / partition / offset / replicas / consumer groups), typical uses, performance and when to choose Kafka, plus the full docker run, every setting explained, a smoke test and troubleshooting.
• Kafka verification with a Golang project: a cobra CLI, one subcommand per capability, covering topic management, sync/async producing, direct partition reads, an exact consumer-group limit, lag, and seven end-to-end assertions.

Read them in order: get the cluster running first, then verify it. If you already have a cluster, jump straight to part two.