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Message Queue for RocketMQ

Topic management

Managing lite topics

This topic explains how to manage lite topics.

Introduction

A lite topic is a type of topic offered for Message Queue for RocketMQ 5.x instances. It is particularly useful for large-scale, fine-grained, and dynamic communication scenarios. Compared with traditional topics, lite topics offer the following benefits:

Massive topic resources: Message Queue for RocketMQ allows you to create millions of lightweight, dynamic topics with automated lifecycle management.

Flexible subscription model: Consumers in the same consumer group can subscribe to different sets of lite topics and dynamically add or remove subscriptions. This eliminates the need for all group members to have the same subscriptions, allowing for subscription isolation and exclusive consumption.

Ordered messaging: Each lite topic contains only one queue. Messages are stored and consumed in strict order and can only be processed by one consumer.

Automated lifecycle: Lite topics are created automatically when a message is sent or a subscription is made. They are also deleted automatically after they expire and no new messages are received. This eliminates the need for manual resource creation and reclamation, greatly reducing complexity.

Fine-grained resource isolation: Lite topics support fine-grained isolation of storage and permissions. You can manage storage and permissions independently for each topic.

Use cases

Long AI session management

In enterprise large language model (LLM) applications, a single session often takes a long time. These sessions depend heavily on context and involve multiple rounds of message exchanges and returns of intermediate results. However, when multiple sessions share one queue, messages may become blocked or processed out of order. This can cause tasks from different users to interfere with each other. To prevent this, you can map each AI session to an independent message stream and associate it with a dedicated lite topic. The system processes these message streams in the correct order, preserving the order and isolating the context for long sessions. Specifically:

Session isolation: Each session is carried out independently to minimize interference.

Strict sequential processing: The single-queue model is the default option and is ideal for AI session pipelines that require context to be preserved in a specific order.

Massive dynamic sessions: A lite topic is capable of handling millions of AI sessions without requiring pre-maintenance of traditional queue resources for each session.

Multi-agent task orchestration

Enterprise AI applications often require multiple agents to divide labor in order to complete a single user request. This process includes task decomposition, task processing, and result aggregation. Such scenarios require higher levels of message isolation, asynchronous decoupling, and resource elasticity. Lite topics are ideal for distributing tasks and collecting results between a primary agent (supervisor) and secondary agents (sub-agents). The system can dynamically create a lite topic for each task and automatically release them once complete. This supports asynchronous decoupling and parallel processing in multi-agent collaboration scenarios. Specifically:

Task isolation: Different agents and tasks do not interfere with each other, which prevents task blocking.

Dynamic creation and automatic release: Lite topics are ideal for temporary, on-demand communication channels for agent tasks.

Asynchronous parallel processing: The main process can quickly dispatch tasks, and sub-tasks process them independently and return results.

Ordered and isolated results: Each task has an independent lite topic, which facilitates task distribution and result collection.

Restrictions

Lite topics are currently in closed beta. Please contact your account manager for access.

Lite topics are only available with RocketMQ 5.x instances.

Creating a lite topic

Prerequisites

When creating a RocketMQ 5.x instance, add the lite topic feature tag. Set the tag key to mq:sys:version-capability and the tag value to lite-topic. For instructions on creating an instance, see Creating instances.

Steps

On the Instance List page, click the instance you want to manage.

On the Topic Management tab, click Create Topic.

In the Create Topic panel, configure the following parameters.

Parameter	Description
Topic name	Enter a name for the topic. Naming rules: The length must be between 3 and 127 characters. Only letters, numbers, hyphens (-), and underscores (_) are allowed. The topic name must be unique within each instance. However, topic names can be duplicated across different instances. The topic name cannot contain any of the following reserved strings or prefixes: Reserved strings: RMQ_SYS_TRANS_OP_HALF_TOPIC, BenchmarkTest, TBW102, OFFSET_MOVED_EVENT, SELF_TEST_TOPIC, RMQ_SYS_TRANS_HALF_TOPIC, SCHEDULE_TOPIC_XXXX, and RMQ_SYS_TRACE_TOPIC Prefixes: rocketmq-broker-, %RETRY%, rmq_sys_, and %DLQ%
Message type	Select Lightweight messaging.
Auto delete	The lite topic is automatically deleted if no new messages are written to it for the specified period. This option is enabled by default. However, you can turn it off.
Expiration time	When auto deletion is enabled, specify the expiration time of the lite topic in minutes. Enter an integer between 30 and 720. The default value is 60 minutes.
Description	Provide additional information for the lite topic.

Click Create.

Viewing lite topic details

Prerequisites

You have created a lite topic.

Steps

On the Instance List page, click the instance you want to check.

On the Topic Management tab, click the lite topic you want to check.

On the topic details page, view the topic's Basic information, Consumer group information, Key permission, and Cloud monitoring information.

Basic information

Parameter	Description
Topic name	The name of the lite topic. You can click the copy icon to copy it.
State	The status of the lite topic.
Description	The description for the lite topic. You can click the edit icon to modify it.
Message type	The message type for the lite topic, i.e., Lightweight messaging.
Automatically delete LiteTopic	Select whether to enable auto deletion for the lite topic. You can click Edit to modify this setting. For instructions, see Editing the auto-delete settings for a lite topic.
Creation time	The time when the lite topic was created.
Owning instance	The ID of the instance associated with the lite topic.

Consumer group information

This section displays information about the consumer groups associated with the lite topic. For more information, see Creating groups.

Parameter	Description
Group ID	The ID of the consumer group associated with the lite topic. You can click the ID to go to the group details page.
Consumption pattern	The consumption mode for the lite topic. LITE_SELECTIVE: Indicates the topic is a lite topic. CLUSTERING: Indicates the topic is a non-lite topic.
Subscription rules	The subscription rule for the comsumer group. The console directly passes through the string specified when the consumer group subscribes to the topic, typically * or TAG1 \|\| TAG2.

Key permission

For more information about key permissions, see Key permissions.

Cloud monitoring

For more information about Cloud Monitor, see Viewing monitoring data.

Editing the auto-delete settings for a lite topic

Prerequisites

You have created a lite topic.

Steps

On the Instance List page, click the instance you want to manage.

Open the edit dialog box in one of the following ways:

Option 1: On the Topic Management tab, click Edit in the Operation column of the lite topic you want to manage.

Option 2:

On the Topic Management tab, click the lite topic you want to manage.

In the Basic information section, click Edit under Automatically delete LiteTopic.

In the Edit dialog box, enable or disable Auto delete. If you enable this option, specify an Expiration time.

Save your settings by clicking Save.

Deleting a lite topic

Prerequisites

You have created a lite topic.

You have deleted all groups associated with the lite topic in the LITE_SELECTIVE consumption mode.

Steps

On the Instance List page, click the instance you want to manage.

On the Topic Management tab, click Delete in the Operation column of the lite topic you want to remove.

In the box that appears, verify the name of the topic and the associated instance ID.

tip

If the system detects any groups in the LITE_SELECTIVE consumption mode, select them and click Batch deletion to remove the association.

Click Delete.

Last updated: 2026.09.23 10:34:37