A topic is a named channel that stores published messages for a period you choose, so that any number of flows can read them independently. This article covers creating a topic, choosing a retention window, editing and renaming a topic, finding out what uses it, and deleting it. Topics are managed from Resources > Topics, and you need manage access to create or change one.
Prerequisites:
- The Topics license must be enabled for your account.
- To create or edit topics account-wide, you need to be the account owner, an administrator, or a Manage All user. To manage the topics registered to a specific integration, you need manage access on that integration. See Grant access to topics.
- Topics are scoped to one environment. A topic you create in a non-production environment doesn't exist in production.
Create a topic
- Go to Resources, and then select Topics.
- Select + Create topic.
- Enter a Name. Names are labels, not identifiers — they don't need to be unique, and you can change a name later without breaking anything.
- Optionally, enter a Description to tell other builders what the topic carries.
- Select a Retention period. The default is 7 days. See Choose a retention window.
The topic is available immediately. You can now publish to it and subscribe flows to it.
Note: A topic has no schema. Any JSON payload up to 1 MB is accepted, and there is nothing else to configure before you publish.
Choose a retention window
Retention controls how long the topic keeps each message. Options range from 1 hour to 90 days:
1 hour · 6 hours · 24 hours · 3 days · 7 days · 14 days · 30 days · 60 days · 90 days
Messages are deleted after this period, whether or not they have been read.
A disabled or failing flow can catch up on, or replay, only what is still inside the window.
Warning: Set retention longer than your worst-case flow downtime. If a subscribing flow is off, disabled, or erroring for longer than the retention period, the messages it hadn't yet processed are deleted and can't be recovered or replayed. A weekend outage against a 24-hour window loses the weekend.
When you estimate worst-case downtime, include weekends, maintenance windows, and the time it takes someone to notice a failing flow.
Use the shortest periods — 1 hour and 6 hours — only for data that genuinely stops mattering that quickly, such as high-volume telemetry you wouldn't replay. When you are unsure, keep the 7-day default.
Retention periods longer than the ceiling licensed for your account appear disabled.
Edit a topic
You can change a topic's name, description, and retention at any time.
- Go to Resources, and then select Topics.
- Select the topic name.
- Change the Name, Description, or Retention.
Renaming is always safe. Publish steps, listeners, and API calls reference the topic's ID, not its name, so nothing needs to be updated after a rename.
If you don't have manage access on the topic, the fields are read-only.
Note: Editing a topic affects every integration it's registered to. See Edits affect every integration.
Shorten retention
When you select a shorter retention period, a warning appears as soon as you change Retention. Messages older than the new window are eligible for deletion right away and can't be recovered, even by a subscription that hadn't read them yet.
Find out what uses a topic
Before you change retention on a shared topic or try to delete one, check what depends on it.
- Go to Resources, and then select Topics.
- Select Actions on the topic's row, and then select Used by.
The view lists the publish steps and listeners that reference the topic, the same as the used-by view for a connection.
Review a topic's audit log
Configuration changes are recorded per topic.
- Go to Resources, and then select Topics.
- Select Actions on the topic's row, and then select View audit log.
The log records who changed what and when, for topic creation, name and description edits, retention changes, purges, and deletion. Replays aren't recorded in the topic's audit log; they appear in the flow's execution logs.
Delete a topic
Deleting a topic requires manage access.
- Go to Resources, and then select Topics.
- Select Actions on the topic's row, and then select Delete.
If the deletion is blocked
A topic can't be deleted while any flow references it or while it's still registered to an integration. See A topic can't be deleted.
What happens when a topic is deleted
A deleted topic goes to the account Recycle bin, where it stays for 30 days before it is purged automatically. You can restore it during that window, and it comes back with the same topic ID.
Warning: A topic's retention clock keeps running while it sits in the Recycle bin. The two timers are independent — so a topic restored after longer than its retention period comes back configured correctly but with no messages. Restoring a topic doesn't restore messages that aged out while it was deleted.
To clear a topic's messages without deleting the topic itself, purge it instead. See View and purge a topic's message history.
Find a topic
The topic list supports searching and sorting:
- Search topics matches against both name and description text.
- Sort by Name or Last updated.
Each row shows the topic name with a Description icon, Last updated, Retention, a View messages action, and row Actions. Select Description to read a topic's description, and to edit it inline if you have manage access.