flowable/flowable-engine · error · FlowableException

It is not possible to auto create new topics when no kafka a

Error message

It is not possible to auto create new topics when no kafka admin operations have been configured

What it means

When a Kafka inbound channel has topic auto-creation enabled (retryConfiguration.autoCreateTopics), the processor must create missing Kafka topics before the listener starts. This requires a KafkaAdminOperations bean; if none is configured, FlowableException is thrown from getTopicCreationFunction. The library refuses to silently skip topic creation when it was explicitly requested.

Source

Thrown at modules/flowable-event-registry-spring/src/main/java/org/flowable/eventregistry/spring/kafka/KafkaChannelDefinitionProcessor.java:353

                .collect(Collectors.toList());
    }

    protected static TopicPartitionOffset getTPOForRetryTopics(DestinationTopic.Properties properties, Suffixer suffixer, TopicPartitionOffset tpo) {
        return new TopicPartitionOffset(suffixer.maybeAddTo(tpo.getTopic()),
                tpo.getPartition() <= properties.numPartitions() ? tpo.getPartition() : DEFAULT_PARTITION_FOR_MANUAL_ASSIGNMENT);
    }

    protected static TopicPartitionOffset getTPOForMainTopic(Suffixer suffixer, TopicPartitionOffset tpo) {
        TopicPartitionOffset newTpo = new TopicPartitionOffset(suffixer.maybeAddTo(tpo.getTopic()),
                tpo.getPartition(), tpo.getOffset(), tpo.getPosition());
        newTpo.setRelativeToCurrent(tpo.isRelativeToCurrent());
        return newTpo;
    }

    protected Consumer<Collection<String>> getTopicCreationFunction(ResolvedRetryConfiguration retryConfiguration) {
        if (retryConfiguration.autoCreateTopics) {
            if (kafkaAdminOperations == null) {
                throw new FlowableException("It is not possible to auto create new topics when no kafka admin operations have been configured");
            }
            return topics -> createNewTopics(topics, retryConfiguration.numPartitions, retryConfiguration.replicationFactor);
        }
        return topics -> {};
    }

    protected void createNewTopics(Collection<String> topics, int numPartitions, short replicationFactor) {
        kafkaAdminOperations.createOrModifyTopics(topics.stream().map(topic -> new NewTopic(topic, numPartitions, replicationFactor)).toArray(NewTopic[]::new));
    }

    protected ListenerContainerFactoryConfigurer createListenerContainerFactoryConfigurer(ResolvedRetryConfiguration retryConfiguration, BackOff backOff,
            DefaultDestinationTopicResolver topicResolver) {
        DeadLetterPublishingRecovererFactory recovererFactory = new DeadLetterPublishingRecovererFactory(topicResolver);

        KafkaConsumerBackoffManager manager = getOrCreateKafkaConsumerBackoffManager();
        ListenerContainerFactoryConfigurer factoryConfigurer = new ListenerContainerFactoryConfigurer(manager, recovererFactory, Clock.systemUTC());
        if (retryConfiguration.hasNoRetryTopic()) {
            // If we do not have a retry topic, then the retries have to be blocking

View on GitHub (pinned to d6d39ce1c6)

Solutions

1. Register a KafkaAdminOperations bean (e.g. a Flowable KafkaAdminOperations bean backed by KafkaAdmin / AdminClient) in the Spring context so the processor can inject it.
2. Alternatively, disable auto topic creation in the channel/retry configuration so no admin operations are needed.
3. Pre-create the topics manually (kafka-topics.sh or IaC) and set autoCreateTopics=false.
4. If using Spring Boot, ensure KafkaAdmin is available and wired; verify the property/bean name matches what KafkaChannelDefinitionProcessor expects.

Example fix

// before
@Bean
public KafkaChannelDefinitionProcessor kafkaChannelDefinitionProcessor(...) {
    KafkaChannelDefinitionProcessor p = new KafkaChannelDefinitionProcessor();
    // kafkaAdminOperations never set
    return p;
}

// after
@Bean
public KafkaChannelDefinitionProcessor kafkaChannelDefinitionProcessor(KafkaAdmin kafkaAdmin) {
    KafkaChannelDefinitionProcessor p = new KafkaChannelDefinitionProcessor();
    p.setKafkaAdminOperations(kafkaAdmin); // admin ops now available for topic creation
    return p;
}

if (autoCreateTopics && applicationContext.getBean(KafkaAdminOperations.class) == null) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("autoCreateTopics requires a KafkaAdminOperations bean");
}

When it happens

Trigger: A Kafka inbound/outbound channel model sets autoCreateTopics (e.g. retry topic auto-creation) to true while no KafkaAdminOperations bean is injected into KafkaChannelDefinitionProcessor, and createEndpointConfigurations runs during endpoint registration.

Common situations: Spring Boot apps that rely on Spring's KafkaAdmin without exposing it as Flowable's KafkaAdminOperations; missing spring-kafka admin configuration; upgrading Flowable event-registry and enabling topic auto-creation without adding the admin bean; minimal XML/Java config that only sets connection factories.

Understand the failure class

Background: "X is required", "must be set", "cannot be empty": the missing-required-config error family, from Vertex AI project/location to WeChat keys — this error's family across 18 libraries.

Related errors

• Could not resolve the KafkaListenerContainerFactory to use f
• Topics or topicPartitions must be provided but not both for
• Only one of topics, topicPartitions or topicPattern must are
• At least one of topics, topicPartitions or topicPattern must
• no org.flowable.app.engine.AppEngine defined in the applicat

AI-assisted analysis of flowable/flowable-engine@d6d39ce1c6 (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3c1f81ccfe599d4e. Report an issue: GitHub.