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The idea is to move the configuration and ability to automatically create topics to the producer.  Broker auto-topic creation will be deprecated. In the producer, auto-creation of a topic will occur through a specific request rather than through a side effect of requesting metadata. 

Auto-creation will try to use client-side configurations if set. However, if none exist, as represented by -1, broker-side defaults can be used if the broker supports KIP 464. Auto-creation is not supported for older brokers if no client configurations are given.

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In order to automatically create topics with the producer, the producer's auto.create.topics.enable config must be set to true and the broker config should be set to false.  If the broker does not support KIP 464, auto.create.num.partitions and auto.create.replication.factor must be specified. 

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This KIP does not plan on changing the broker default. However, it is useful to understand compatibility issues if this were to happen. 

• • Systems that rely on auto-creation would be encouraged to set the producer config auto.create.topics.enable to true, but could also rely on the deprecated broker config.
    • Systems with older broker versions would need to set auto.create.num.partitions and auto.create.replication.factor upon allowing producer auto-creation.
    • Setting both the broker and producer auto.create.topics.enable to true is not advised. 
  • Systems that utilize auto-creation on the consumer will no longer be able to do so with the producer config.
    • Enabling the broker config or making further changes to the code is required
.After changing the broker default to false, there are a few changes/compatibility issues
• • • .

Rejected Alternatives

• Enabling true by default on the producer config:
• Setting both the broker config and the producer config to true could result in both attempting to create new topics and result in excess requests to the broker.
• Topic auto-creation is a feature that is not supported as it once was, so defaulting to false supports this trend towards using admin client to create topics. Auto-creation does not work on older brokers without configuration client-side anyway, so it might be more clear that configuration must be done in order to keep using this feature.