Streaming

rpk topic create

Create one or more Kafka topics with configurable partitions, replication factor, and topic-level settings.

Starting in Redpanda v25.3, several topic properties support enhanced tristate behavior. Properties like retention.ms, retention.bytes, segment.ms, and others now distinguish between zero values (immediate eligibility for cleanup/compaction) and negative values (disable the feature entirely). Previously, zero and negative values were treated the same way. For the complete list of affected properties and detailed information, see Redpanda v26.1 behavior changes. Review your topic configurations if you currently use zero values for these properties.

For more information about topics, see rpk topic describe.

Usage

rpk topic create <topics...> [flags]

Examples

This section provides examples of how to use rpk topic create.

Create a topic

Create a topic named my-topic

rpk topic create my-topic

Output:

TOPIC     STATUS
my-topic  OK

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

Output:

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

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

Output:

TOPIC       STATUS
my-topic-3  OK

Create topic with multiple partitions

Create topic my-topic-4 with 20 partitions

rpk topic create my-topic-4 -p 20

Output:

TOPIC       STATUS
my-topic-4  OK

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

Output:

TOPIC       STATUS
my-topic-5  OK

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

Output:

TOPIC    STATUS
topic-1  OK
topic-2  OK

Flags

Value Type Description

-d, --dry

bool

Validate the topic creation request without actually creating the topic. Useful for testing configuration.

--if-not-exists

bool

Only create the topic if it does not already exist.

-p, --partitions

int32

Number of partitions for the topic. More partitions enable higher parallelism but increase resource usage. Default is 1.

-r, --replicas

int16

Replication factor (must be odd); -1 defaults to the cluster’s default_topic_replications.

-c, --topic-config

stringArray

Topic configuration properties in the format key=value. Can be specified multiple times. Example: --topic-config retention.ms=86400000.

Global flags

Value Type Description

--config

string

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

-X, --config-opt

stringArray

Override rpk configuration settings; -X help for detail or -X list for terser detail.

--ignore-profile

bool

Ignore rpk.yaml and redpanda.yaml; use default settings.

--profile

string

rpk profile to use.

-v, --verbose

bool

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