Hi all 👋 I have a question about per-key scheduling behavior in Pulsar. I need strict ordering and exclusivity per

sensor_id

, but I don’t want long-lived key to consumer stickiness. Instead, I’m trying to achieve this logic:

If no consumer is currently processing

sensor_id = X

, then the next message for that sensor should be assigned to the next available consumer (round-robin or least-loaded).

All while preserving ordering and ensuring no two consumers ever process the same key concurrently.

KeyShared

ensures ordering and exclusivity, but it uses stable key-range hashing, so a key stays with one consumer until that consumer dies. Is there any Pulsar pattern, config, or upcoming feature that supports dynamic per-message key assignment instead of sticky key-range ownership? Or is this fundamentally outside Pulsar’s delivery semantics? Thanks! 🙏