IBM/sarama ? reverse-engineered prompt

Build me a Go library for Apache Kafka that feels solid and easy to use.

I want the package to let me connect to a Kafka cluster, send messages, read messages, manage consumer groups, and handle admin tasks like creating topics, checking metadata, and managing offsets. It should support the common Kafka features people actually use, including compression, retries, transactions, SASL and TLS auth, and testing helpers so I can write code without needing a real broker every time. Please include a few simple examples that show how to produce, consume, and use the admin client.

Make it behave like a mature production library, with clear errors, good defaults, and careful attention to compatibility with recent Kafka and Go versions. If you need to check current Kafka protocol details or Go docs while implementing, look them up online.