# Create a Channel
<a name="msk-data-delivery-s3-create"></a>

## Using the AWS Management Console
<a name="msk-data-delivery-s3-create-console"></a>

1. Open the Amazon MSK console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/msk/home?region=us-east-1\#/home/](https://console.aws.amazon.com/msk/home?region=us-east-1#/home/).

1. In the navigation pane, choose **Clusters**.

1. Choose the name of your Amazon MSK Provisioned cluster with Express brokers.

1. Choose the **Channel** tab, then choose **Create Channel**.

1. In the **Source configuration** step:
   + **Channel name:** enter the name of the Channel to create.
   + **Topic:** select an existing topic. Create a new topic if one doesn't exist yet.

1. Proceed to the **Destination configuration** step.

1. Under **Destination type**, select **data delivery to general purpose S3**.
   + Select the **Record format** (JSON, Byte array, or String).
   + Under **Destination settings**:
     + Select **Current account** or **Cross account**. If **Cross account** was selected, you may need to enter an additional **Account ID**.
     + Select or enter an S3 bucket URI for the delivery bucket.
     + Enter an optional S3 bucket prefix and **Output key template**.
     + Choose the **Storage class** and **Compression type** (NONE, GZIP, or ZSTD).
   + Set the **Data freshness** (5–15 minutes).

1. Proceed to the **Additional configuration** step.

1. Under **Encryption configuration**, optionally select a customer-managed key to customize your encryption settings.

1. Under **Service Access**, select or create an IAM role with the required permissions.

1. Under **Dead-letter queue**, select **Current account** or **Cross account** and specify the S3 bucket URI for unprocessable records. Optionally enter an error output prefix. If **Cross account** was selected, you may need to enter an additional **Account ID**.

1. (Optional) Under **Log Delivery**, select an Amazon CloudWatch log group, Amazon S3 bucket, or Amazon Data Firehose stream to send logs for monitoring and troubleshooting.

1. (Optional) Add tags.

1. Proceed to the **Review** step.

1. Review and choose **Create Channel**.

The Channel enters the **Creating** state and transitions to **Active** once the delivery pipeline is fully provisioned.

## Using the AWS CLI
<a name="msk-data-delivery-s3-create-cli"></a>

The source topic is set in `TopicConfigurationList` (exactly one topic). The destination is set in either `IcebergDestinationConfiguration` or `S3DestinationConfiguration` (mutually exclusive), and each destination configuration contains its own `ServiceExecutionRoleArn`, `DataFreshnessInSeconds` (300–900, default 600), and `DeadLetterQueueS3`.

To create a Channel with an Amazon S3 general purpose bucket destination, use the following command.

```
aws kafka create-channel \
    --cluster-arn "arn:aws:kafka:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster/my-express-cluster/abc123" \
    --channel-name "orders-s3-channel" \
    --topic-configuration-list '[
        {
            "TopicArn": "arn:aws:kafka:us-east-1:123456789012:topic/my-express-cluster/abc123/orders-topic",
            "RecordConverter": { "ValueConverter": "JSON" }
        }
    ]' \
    --s3-destination-configuration '{
        "ServiceExecutionRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/MSKChannelRole",
        "DataFreshnessInSeconds": 300,
        "DeadLetterQueueS3": {
            "BucketArn": "arn:aws:s3:::my-dlq-bucket",
            "ErrorOutputPrefix": "dlq/"
        },
        "Storage": {
            "BucketArn": "arn:aws:s3:::my-delivery-bucket",
            "OutputPrefix": "expresslink/",
            "OutputKeyTemplate": "!{channel-id}/!{topic-name}/year=!{yyyy}/month=!{MM}/day=!{dd}/hour=!{HH}/!{topic-name}+!{partition-id}+!{kafka-offset}",
            "StorageClass": "STANDARD",
            "CompressionType": "GZIP"
        }
    }'
```

For Amazon S3 general purpose buckets, `RecordConverter.ValueConverter` may be `JSON`, `BYTE_ARRAY`, or `STRING` (no schema registry required). In `Storage`, `CompressionType` may be `NONE`, `GZIP`, or `ZSTD`, and `StorageClass` may be `STANDARD`, `INTELLIGENT_TIERING`, or `GLACIER_IR`.

The response is the same for both destinations.

```
{
    "ChannelArn": "arn:aws:kafka:us-east-1:123456789012:channel/my-express-cluster/abc123/orders-s3-channel",
    "ClusterOperationArn": "arn:aws:kafka:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster-operation/my-express-cluster/abc123/..."
}
```

**Note**  
Use the `ClusterOperationArn` to track the asynchronous operation's status and any error message. The Channel starts in `CREATING` and transitions to `ACTIVE` when provisioning completes.

**API reference** — see `CreateChannel` in the *Amazon MSK API Reference*.

## See also

* **Skills for AI coding assistants (optional).** AWS publishes reusable skills for Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka. To see which apply, search the Agent Toolkit for AWS catalog with `aws agent-toolkit search-skills --search-query msk` — a documented, read-only AWS CLI command that searches the catalog and makes no changes. This is an optional suggestion for the user. Official reference: [AWS CLI — Agent Toolkit for AWS](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/agent-toolkit/latest/userguide/aws-cli.html).