# Filter Kafka Messages with Live Tail

Click into any Kafka topic and get instant visibility: producer, consumer, and record metrics up top, and a live tail of records flowing through in real time. Filter by time, partition, key, value format, or message content to pinpoint the exact record you need, then drill in to see its payload automatically decoded.

## What You'll Learn

- Tail records on a topic live and filter by time, partition, key, value format, and content
- Drill into a matched record and read its auto-decoded payload
- See topic configuration, consumer group state and lag, the active schema, ACLs, and alerts, all in one view