Create a doc with a list of nice-to-know things prior to a call

[mensfeld]

starting pint:

System & Environment Information

Infrastructure & Deployment

• Operating system and version (uname -a)
• Deployment method (Docker, Kubernetes, systemd, Heroku, AWS MSK, etc.)
• Kafka vendor and version (Confluent, MSK, self-hosted, etc.)
• Whether Karafka processes run in the same availability zone as Kafka brokers
• Network configuration (firewalls, proxies, load balancers)
• Environment details (staging vs production differences)

Current Karafka Setup

• Full output of bundle exec karafka info
• Complete karafka.rb configuration file (sanitized)
• Versions of all Karafka ecosystem components (karafka-core, waterdrop, karafka-rdkafka, karafka-web)
• Current concurrency settings and why you chose them

Application Architecture

Consumer Details

• Number and types of consumers you're running
• Consumer group configurations
• Topic and partition counts for your workloads
• Current message processing patterns (batch vs individual)
• Consumer lifecycle patterns and any custom logic

Message Processing Characteristics

• Average message sizes and processing times
• Peak message throughput requirements
• Whether your workloads are IO-bound or CPU-bound
• Any long-running operations in consumers
• Database operations, external API calls, or file I/O patterns

Current Performance Metrics

• Current CPU and memory usage patterns
• Processing latency requirements
• Throughput requirements (messages/second)
• Any existing bottlenecks or performance issues

Concurrency & Scaling Context

Current Concurrency Setup

• Existing concurrency/threading configuration
• How you currently handle parallel processing
• Any custom threading or worker pool implementations
• Current scaling strategies and pain points

Multiplexing Goals

• Why you want to implement multiplexing specifically
• Expected performance improvements you're targeting
• Which consumers/topics would benefit most
• Timeline and rollout strategy

Technical Infrastructure

Resource Constraints

• Available CPU cores and memory per instance
• Database connection pool sizes
• Any resource limitations or quotas
• Monitoring and alerting setup

Dependencies & Integration

• Ruby version and other relevant gems
• Rails integration (if applicable)
• Database types and connection patterns
• External service dependencies
• Custom middleware or plugins

Operational Concerns

Monitoring & Observability

• Current monitoring setup (Karafka Web UI, custom metrics)
• Logging configuration and requirements
• Error handling and alerting strategies
• How you currently track processing health

Reliability Requirements

• Error handling and retry strategies
• Dead letter queue usage
• Offset management preferences
• Data consistency requirements
• Recovery time objectives

Team & Process

• Team experience with Karafka and Kafka
• Testing strategies for concurrent code
• Deployment and rollback procedures
• Maintenance windows and update processes

Specific Use Cases

Workload Patterns

• Description of your heaviest consumers
• Seasonal or time-based traffic patterns
• Any consumers that would particularly benefit from Virtual Partitions
• Single vs multi-partition processing needs

Business Context

• Critical vs non-critical processing workflows
• SLA requirements for different message types
• Impact of processing delays on your business
• Compliance or regulatory considerations