KIP-559 — Make the Kafka Protocol Friendlier with L7 Proxies

Accepted Kafka 2.4 ProtocolClient

Adds a mandatory `client_software_name` and `client_software_version` field to the `ApiVersionsRequest` (v3+) so that brokers can identify which client library and version initiated a connection. L7 proxies and service meshes need access to client identity information embedded in the Kafka protocol to implement routing, observability, and policy enforcement without out-of-band mechanisms.

Protocol Impact

JoinGroup v6 · SyncGroup v4 · Produce · Fetch · DescribeGroups · SaslAuthenticate · CreateDelegationToken · RenewDelegationToken · ExpireDelegationToken · DescribeDelegationToken

Details