diff --git a/README.adoc b/README.adoc
index d111935..f816e97 100644
--- a/README.adoc
+++ b/README.adoc
@@ -102,6 +102,8 @@ overlap with the built-in variable names
 [[action-forward]]
 ===== Forward
 
+The forward action will imply the <<action-stop, Stop action>> when used.
+
 
 [[action-merge]]
 ===== Merge
diff --git a/example.log b/example.log
index 30a80b2..00ec117 100644
--- a/example.log
+++ b/example.log
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
 hello there
 This is a somewhat longer line of logs?
 This is a MUCH longer log line and it should not be truncated, hopefully
-{"this": "is some JSON data", "which": "should also be transmitted properly", "meta" : {"topic" : "hotdog"}}
+{"this": "is some JSON data", "which": "should also be transmitted properly", "meta" : {"topic" : "test"}}
diff --git a/hotdog.yml b/hotdog.yml
index 47c04f9..08bf50a 100644
--- a/hotdog.yml
+++ b/hotdog.yml
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ rules:
               timestamp: '{{iso8601}}'
 
       - type: forward
-        topic: test
+        topic: '{{value}}'
 
       - type: stop
 
@@ -58,3 +58,5 @@ rules:
     actions:
       - type: forward
         topic: 'logs-unknown'
+
+      - type: stop
diff --git a/src/main.rs b/src/main.rs
index d0f3297..e745bea 100644
--- a/src/main.rs
+++ b/src/main.rs
@@ -206,7 +206,13 @@ async fn connection_loop(stream: TcpStream, settings: Arc<Settings>, metrics: Ar
                             if let Ok(result) = expr.search(data) {
                                 if ! result.is_null() {
                                     rule_matches = true;
-                                    /* TODO: need to find a way to extrac tmatches */
+                                    debug!("jmespath rule matched, value: {}", result);
+                                    if let Some(value) = result.as_string() {
+                                        hash.insert("value".to_string(), value.to_string());
+                                    }
+                                    else {
+                                        warn!("Unable to parse out the string value for {}, the `value` variable substitution will not be available,", result);
+                                    }
                                 }
                             }
                         }
@@ -245,8 +251,14 @@ async fn connection_loop(stream: TcpStream, settings: Arc<Settings>, metrics: Ar
             for action in rule.actions.iter() {
                 match action {
                     Action::Forward { topic } => {
-                        debug!("Forwarding to the topic: `{}`", topic);
-                        send_to_kafka(output, topic, &producer, &state).await;
+                        if let Ok(actual) = hb.render_template(&topic, &hash) {
+                            debug!("Forwarding to the topic: `{}`", actual);
+                            send_to_kafka(output, &actual, &producer, &state).await;
+                            continue_rules = false;
+                        }
+                        else {
+                            error!("Failed to process the configured topic: `{}`", topic);
+                        }
                         break;
                     },
                     Action::Merge { json } => {