# Get detailed information about a topic
<a name="msk-describe-topic"></a>

You can retrieve detailed information about a specific topic in your MSK Provisioned cluster, including its current status, partition count, replication factor, and configuration. This is useful for troubleshooting, validating topic settings, or monitoring topic status during operations.

**Note**  
This API response reflects data that updates approximately every minute. For the most current topic state after making changes, allow approximately one minute before querying.

**Topics**
+ [Describe a topic using the AWS Management Console](describe-topic-console.md)
+ [Describe a topic using the AWS CLI](describe-topic-cli.md)
+ [Describe a topic using the API](describe-topic-api.md)

# Describe a topic using the AWS Management Console
<a name="describe-topic-console"></a>

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console, and open the Amazon MSK console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/msk/home?region=us-east-1\$1/home/](https://console.aws.amazon.com/msk/home?region=us-east-1#/home/).

1. In the list of clusters, choose the name of the cluster that contains the topic you want to describe.

1. On the cluster details page, choose the **Topics** tab.

1. In the list of topics, choose the name of the topic you want to view.

1. The topic details page shows information about the topic, including its status, partition count, replication factor, and configuration settings.

# Describe a topic using the AWS CLI
<a name="describe-topic-cli"></a>

Run the following command, replacing *ClusterArn* with the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of your cluster and *TopicName* with the name of the topic you want to describe.

```
aws kafka describe-topic --cluster-arn ClusterArn --topic-name TopicName
```

The output of this command looks like the following JSON example.

```
{
    "topicArn": "arn:aws:kafka:us-east-1:123456789012:topic/MyCluster/abcd1234-abcd-dcba-4321-a1b2abcd9f9f-2/MyTopic",
    "topicName": "MyTopic",
    "partitionCount": 3,
    "replicationFactor": 3,
    "configs": "Y29tcHJlc3Npb24udHlwZT1wcm9kdWNlcgpyZXRlbnRpb24ubXM9NjA0ODAwMDAw",
    "status": "ACTIVE"
}
```

## Understanding topic status
<a name="describe-topic-status"></a>

The `status` field indicates the current state of the topic. The following table describes the possible status values.


**Topic status values**  

| Status | Description | 
| --- | --- | 
| CREATING | The topic is being created. | 
| ACTIVE | The topic is active and ready for use. | 
| UPDATING | The topic configuration is being updated. | 
| DELETING | The topic is being deleted. | 

## Understanding topic configurations
<a name="describe-topic-configs"></a>

The `configs` field contains the topic's Kafka configuration properties, encoded in Base64 format. To view the configuration in a readable format, you need to decode the Base64 string.

The following example shows how to decode the configuration using the `base64` command on Linux or macOS.

```
echo "Y29tcHJlc3Npb24udHlwZT1wcm9kdWNlcgpyZXRlbnRpb24ubXM9NjA0ODAwMDAw" | base64 --decode
```

The decoded output shows the topic configuration properties in key-value format.

```
compression.type=producer
retention.ms=604800000
```

For more information about topic-level configuration properties, see [Topic-level Amazon MSK configuration](msk-configuration-properties.md#msk-topic-confinguration).

# Describe a topic using the API
<a name="describe-topic-api"></a>

To describe a topic using the API, see [DescribeTopic](https://docs.aws.amazon.com//msk/1.0/apireference/v1-clusters-clusterarn-topics-topicname.html#DescribeTopic).