Wire Formats

Typr Events supports multiple serialization formats for Kafka messages.

Avro + Confluent Schema Registry

The default format. Uses binary Avro with Confluent Schema Registry for schema evolution.

val options = AvroOptions.default(...).copy(
  wireFormat = AvroWireFormat.ConfluentAvro
)

Requirements:

• Confluent Schema Registry running
• io.confluent:kafka-avro-serializer dependency

Kafka properties:

props.put("schema.registry.url", "http://localhost:8081");

Plain Avro

Binary Avro without Schema Registry. Schema is embedded or agreed upon out-of-band.

val options = AvroOptions.default(...).copy(
  wireFormat = AvroWireFormat.PlainAvro
)

Use when:

• No Schema Registry available
• Schema evolution handled manually
• Testing without infrastructure

JSON

JSON serialization using your preferred JSON library.

val options = AvroOptions.default(...).copy(
  wireFormat = AvroWireFormat.JsonEncoded(JsonLib.Jackson)
)

Supported JSON libraries:

Library	Language	Configuration
Jackson	Java, Kotlin, Scala	JsonLib.Jackson
Circe	Scala	JsonLib.Circe
ZIO JSON	Scala	JsonLib.ZioJson

Use when:

• Human-readable messages preferred
• Debugging or development
• Interoperability with non-JVM systems

Comparison

Format	Size	Schema Registry	Human Readable	Schema Evolution
Avro + Confluent	Small	Required	No	Automatic
Plain Avro	Small	No	No	Manual
JSON	Large	No	Yes	Manual