Feature request or enhancement

Which use case/requirement will be addressed by the proposed feature?

This enhancement addresses the need for first-class support for offset management in Kafka Connect, outlined in KIP-875. This would allow for:

• Validation of user-provided offsets
• Easier management of offsets from external systems, including:
  • Resetting offsets, particularly in staging/development environments that may rapidly change-saves having to create new connectors over and over
  • Skipping invalid records not addressed by current error-handling

• Avoiding direct manipulation of Kafka Connect internals i.e. offsets topic in distributed Kafka Connect architecture