Manage Schemas on Confluent Cloud¶

You can use Confluent Cloud Schema Registry to manage schemas in Confluent Cloud. You enable a single Schema Registry per Confluent Cloud environment. Schema Registry is accessed over port 443.

You can create and edit schemas in a schema editor and associate them with Kafka topics.

Important

Your VPC must be able to communicate with the Confluent Cloud Schema Registry public internet endpoint. For more information, see Using Confluent Cloud Schema Registry in a VPC Peered Environment.
This quick start assumes that you have completed Confluent Cloud Quick Start, including installing and using the Confluent Cloud CLI.
This quick start requires that you use both the Confluent Cloud UI and the Confluent Cloud CLI. (A handy list of CLI commands is here.)

Log in to the Confluent Cloud UI¶

Log in to Confluent Cloud at https://confluent.cloud.
Select the same environment (default) and cluster (e.g., My First Cluster) as for the Confluent Cloud Quick Start.

Enable Schema Registry for Confluent Cloud¶

To verify this, use the Confluent Cloud CLI: to run ccloud environment list and ccloud kafka cluster list. If you need more help on setting the active environment or cluster, see Confluent Cloud Quick Start and the Confluent Cloud CLI Command Reference.

Log in to the Confluent Cloud UI at https://confluent.cloud.
Click Schemas on the navigation bar.
Choose a cloud provider and region.
- Select Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or Azure
- Choose a Region. US, Europe, and APAC are the available choices.
- Click Enable Schema Registry.
Click Confirm to create the Schema Registry with these cloud provider and region settings, or click Cancel to go back and re-set.
Under Make requests to this Schema Registry endpoint, copy the Schema Registry endpoint to a safe location.

Create an API Key for Confluent Cloud Schema Registry¶

To use Confluent Cloud Schema Registry for managing Kafka clusters, you need an API key specific to Schema Registry.

Note

The API key for Confluent Cloud Schema Registry is distinct from the API key you created for Kafka clusters in the same environment, per the Confluent Cloud Quick Start.
Confluent Cloud provides one Schema Registry per environment, and each environment can contain multiple Kafka clusters. You need an API key/secret pair for each Kafka cluster and another for the Schema Registry cluster.

Click the Manage API Keys button under step 1 to open the API access list of Schema Registry API keys.
Click Create key to create a new Schema Registry API key.
On the Create a new Schema Registry API key dialog, copy the API Key and the API Secret to a safe location.
When the API Key and API Secret are saved, click the checkbox next to I have saved my API key and secret and am ready to continue., and click Continue.

Create a Topic in Confluent Cloud¶

You will already have topics available, having worked through the prerequisite Confluent Cloud Quick Start, but create a new topic designed to test out Schema Registry.

Select the environment.

Tip

If you have only one environment, default, it will be selected already.
Select the cluster.

Use the same cluster as for the Confluent Cloud Quick Start (e.g, My First Cluster).
Click Topics on the left menu, then click + Add a topic.

Name the new topic employees, and click Create with defaults to add it.

Create a Schema¶

Use the Confluent Cloud CLI to create the schema. If you need more help with the basic CLI commands, type ccloud --help, ccloud schema-registry --help to drill down, or see Confluent Cloud Quick Start and the Confluent Cloud CLI Command Reference.

Log in to the Confluent Cloud CLI.
```
ccloud login
```
Follow the prompts to enter your credentials (email and password).

Upon login, Confluent Cloud indicates your current environment (e.g., the default t182).
```
Enter your Confluent credentials:
Email:
Password:

Using environment t2814 ("my-cloud-demos")
```
Select the same environment (for this example, default) where you created the employees topic. (It may already be selected upon login.)

In order to verify this, use ccloud environment list to get the environment IDs, followed by ccloud environment use <ID> to select the environment you want (if it is not already the current environment).
```
ccloud environment list
```
For example:
```
$ ccloud environment list

Id    |      Name
+----------+----------------+
  * t1898  | default
    t2814  | my-cloud-demos
    t25500 | Test
```
```
ccloud environment use t1898
```
Tip
- To list environments: ccloud environment list
- To select an environment: ccloud environment use <environment ID>
- To list clusters: ccloud kafka cluster list
- To select a cluster: ccloud kafka cluster use <cluster ID>
- For the full list of ccloud commands see Confluent Cloud CLI Command Reference.

Create a file containing the following JSON and name it employees.json.

{
   "type" : "record",
   "namespace" : "Example",
   "name" : "Employee",
   "fields" : [
      { "name" : "Name" , "type" : "string" },
      { "name" : "Age" , "type" : "int" }
   ]
}

Create a schema that uses employees.json.
```
ccloud schema-registry schema create --subject employees-value --schema employees.json --type AVRO
```
For example:
```
$ ccloud schema-registry schema create --subject employees-value --schema employees.json --type AVRO

Enter your Schema Registry API Key:
xxxx
Enter your Schema Registry API Secret:
xxxxyyyyzzzz
Successfully registered schema with ID: 100001
```
Tip
- Starting with the current Confluent Cloud release, the option to specify a schema language type is available for preview. On the Confluent Cloud CLI, you can specify the type as AVRO, JSON, or PROTOBUF, and then supply a schema that conforms to the syntax for your schema type. To learn more about development using these schema formats, see Schema Formats, Serializers, and Deserializers in the Confluent Platform documentation, the JSON Schema project documentation, the Apache Avro® specification, and the Google Developer documentation on Protocol Buffers.
- You can also create a schema on the Confluent Cloud web UI. To do so, click a cluster, select a topic, and click the Schema tab. Select a schema language type from the drop-down menu (for this example, Avro), paste the schema (such as the employees.json content), and click Save.

View the Topic and Associated Schema¶

Return to the Confluent Cloud UI to view the new schema for the employees topic.

Navigate to the topics list for your cluster.
Click the employees topic you created in a previous step.
Click Schema.

And there you have it! You have a new schema (employees-value) for the employees topic in Confluent Cloud Schema Registry.