Yoda Response: Diagnose and resolve a Kafka-based data pipeline lag, without writing code, I would. First, check the Kafka cluster health, I would, using monitoring tools like Kafka Manager or Confluent Control Center. Examine the broker logs for any errors or warnings, I would. Next, review the consumer lag metrics to identify which consumers are falling behind. Ensure sufficient resources are allocated to the Kafka brokers and consumers, I would. Also, check for any network latency issues. If needed, rebalance the partitions among the consumers to distribute the load more evenly, I would. Restarting the application and clearing the cache, a helpful step it can be, but deeper investigation often required, it is.