Status

Current state: Discarded

Discussion thread: Thread

JIRA: KAFKA-14741

Please keep the discussion on the mailing list rather than commenting on the wiki (wiki discussions get unwieldy fast).

Motivation

Connectors are uniquely identified by their name. The name is also the only field that can be used to categorize a connector and to give it some context. For example with MirrorMaker, it's common to name connectors source→target so it's clear what they do. While good names help, it would be useful to also be able to attach a free form description/comment to connectors. For example this could be used to put the name of the team owning the connector or to put a contact name in case there's an issue. This would be especially helpful in Connect clusters running several connectors and shared by multiple teams. 

Public Interfaces

This KIP proposes adding a new configuration setting to sink and source connectors:

Name: description
Type: String
Documentation: An optional description for this connector.
Required: No
Group: Common
Default: null
Display: Description for the connector
Importance: Low

Since this new field is part of the connector configuration, every time it is updated via the REST API it may trigger a rebalance of the connector.

Proposed Changes

Add the new field to ConnectorConfig which holds the common connector configurations.

Compatibility, Deprecation, and Migration Plan

This is a new optional field. Existing connectors are not impacted and since the field defaults to null. Unknown configurations are ignored by Connect so if a connector is created with a description and then the Connect version is downgraded , the field will be ignored.

Test Plan

This will be tested with unit/integration tests

Rejected Alternatives

None