kafka_config.rb and and kafka_cluster_name.rb are two useful functions in operations/puppet that transparently retrieve from hiera all the necessary configuration required by a Kafka consumer/producer. This code is now colliding a bit with the new profile/role convention, because in theory no explicit hiera call is allowed anymore ouside a profile's parameters.
Ideally these functions could become stateless simply adding new parameters instead of retrieving those values via hiera. This would require more hiera configurations but it would still allow code reuse among Kafka consumers/producers configurations.