Create a topic

What you'll achieve

A new topic — a named channel your applications write data to and read data from — created in your team's environment and visible in the Topics list.

Before you start

• You can see your team's business unit in the Context box at the bottom of the left sidebar. If the list there is empty, you haven't been onboarded yet — contact the platform team.
• Your role badge in the Context box says Developer or higher. If it says Viewer, you can browse but not create — ask your team's admin.
• The environment allows changes. In a read-only environment (a banner on the Topics page will say "This environment is read-only") only admins can create topics.

Steps

1. Set your context. In the Context box at the bottom of the sidebar, pick your business unit in the Business Unit field and choose a Stage (dev, qas, or run). The page reloads by itself; if it doesn't, click Reload.
2. Click Topics in the sidebar (under Resources).
3. Click Add Topic, in the bottom-right corner of the red banner.
4. In Topic Identifier, type a short descriptive name — for example crm-orders. The Full Topic Name Preview underneath shows the final name: the system adds your business unit and stage in front automatically, so don't type them yourself.
5. Leave Partitions at 3 unless the team that will read the data asked for a different number.
6. Skip Advanced Configuration (Optional) unless you were given specific settings — the defaults are fine. (Curious what they mean? See the Topics guide.)
7. Click Save.

What success looks like

You land back on the Topics list, and your topic appears in the table under its full name from the preview (your business unit and stage, then your identifier). That full name is what you hand to anyone who asks "which topic should we use?".

Something went wrong?

• Save is greyed out and hovering it says "Topic creation is disabled for this environment" — the environment is read-only or your role is Viewer (see Before you start). Ask your team's admin.
• A red error box appears at the top of the form — read its message: most often the name is already taken (pick another identifier) or too long (shorten it; the full name in the preview must stay under 249 characters). If the message doesn't help, contact the platform team.
• The Topics page says "Set context to load topics" — your context isn't set; go back to step 1.

Want the background — what the settings mean, how names are built, how long data is kept? Read the Topics guide.