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AZ-400DevOps Engineer Expert
AZ-400 · 30 days left ›
PREDICTED786 ±37✓ Exam Ready · 87% confidence
Inside the app
Nine interactive practice formats, on iPhone
Azure Mastery has nine interactive formats for exam practice. The examples below show original AZ-400 practice questions in Azure Mastery on iPhone and iPad. The exam simulator uses timed sessions with the published domain weights. Microsoft's live interface and question mix may differ.
In Azure DevOps, which process template includes work item types for Epics, Features, User Stories, and Tasks?
ScrumThe Scrum process uses Epics, Features, Product Backlog Items, Tasks, and Bugs. It tracks requirements as Product Backlog Items rather than User Stories, so it does not match the named types.
AgileThe Agile process template defines Epics, Features, User Stories, Tasks, and Bugs, matching the exact set of work item types in the question and suiting iterative delivery teams.
CMMIThe CMMI process targets formal change management with Epics, Features, Requirements, Tasks, Bugs, and Change Requests. It uses Requirements instead of User Stories and is heavier than what is described.
BasicThe Basic process is the lightweight default, offering only Epics, Issues, and Tasks. It deliberately omits Features and User Stories, so it does not provide the full hierarchy listed.
Multiple choice
An original AZ-400 practice question with one correct answer. Choose an option to read its written rationale.
Exam-specific sampleExplore more question formats
Which package types does GitHub Packages support as registries? (Select all that apply)
Cargo (Rust)Cargo crates for Rust are not a supported GitHub Packages registry type; supported ecosystems are npm, NuGet, Maven/Gradle, Docker, and RubyGems.
MavenGitHub Packages supports Maven (and Gradle), so Java artifacts can be published and resolved directly from the registry.
NpmGitHub Packages hosts an npm registry, letting teams publish and consume JavaScript packages scoped to their repository or organization.
NuGetGitHub Packages provides a NuGet registry for publishing and restoring .NET packages, authenticated with a GitHub token.
Docker/Container imagesGitHub Packages hosts Docker and OCI container images through the GitHub Container Registry (ghcr.io).
Multi-select
An original AZ-400 multi-select question. Select all the correct options to earn the mark.
All-or-nothing
Arrange the steps in the correct order to set up end-to-end traceability from a user story to a production deployment in Azure DevOps.
⋮⋮1Create a user story work item in Azure Boards
⋮⋮2Link the commit or pull request to the work item
⋮⋮3Build the code change through a CI pipeline linked to the repository
⋮⋮4Configure the release pipeline to report deployment status back to…
Drag-and-drop
An original AZ-400 ordering question you can answer by touch on iPhone and iPad.
Interactive item
You need to configure a service hook in Azure DevOps to send a notification to Microsoft Teams when a work item is updated. Select the correct navigation path in the…
Hotspot
An original AZ-400 question with a visual prompt, designed for touch on iPhone and iPad.
Tap target
Pipeline Secret Exposure Incident
1Solution: Move the connection string to a pipeline variable marked as secret in…
2Solution: Store the connection string in Azure Key Vault, create a variable…
3Solution: Replace the connection string with an Azure Managed Identity for the…
Case studies
An original AZ-400 case study with several questions about the same requirements and environment.
Multi-question
✕Your answer: Scrum
✨ Answer Coach:The Scrum process uses Epics, Features, Product Backlog Items, Tasks, and Bugs. It tracks requirements as Product Backlog Items rather than User Stories, so it does not match the named types.
— grounded in authored certification guidance
Answer Coach
Answer Coach explains why the answer is correct and, where available, why each option is right or wrong. It helps you understand a mistake and remember the distinction. Read explanations after each question or at the end of a practice test. On supported devices, optional AI can reword a note on your device after checking it against the written guidance.
App exclusive
AZ-400 Practice Questions & Exam Prep — Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions
Practise the decisions that connect a reviewed change to a working release: recovering Git content, choosing an agent identity, transferring build outputs and diagnosing a failed notification. Azure Mastery ships 547 AZ-400 practice questions across the five DevOps domains. The Expert credential also requires a qualifying Azure Associate certification; passing AZ-400 alone does not meet that prerequisite.
The exam
What is the AZ-400 exam?
AZ-400 is the expert-level exam for the Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert credential — Microsoft's senior DevOps certification spanning both Azure DevOps and GitHub. Azure Developer Associate retired on 31 July 2026; an Azure Developer Associate credential earned before that date still satisfies the AZ-400 prerequisite, but new candidates now reach it through AZ-104 (Azure Administrator Associate) instead.
AZ-400 spans five DevOps domains, with the build/release pipelines domain weighted at 50–55% of the exam. Expect dual coverage throughout:
Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions
Azure DevOps Repos and GitHub repositories
Bicep and ARM templates
Security scanning — Microsoft Defender for DevOps, GitHub Advanced Security, Dependabot, CodeQL
Microsoft updated the AZ-400 skills outline on 27 July 2026 with minor updates across all five domains — branching strategies, package management, deployments, IaC, auth/secrets, and monitoring. Every question in Azure Mastery's AZ-400 bank is mapped to the current outline. Read the official outline at learn.microsoft.com.
QuestionsTypically 40–60; formats vary
Duration100 minutes
Pass score700 / 1000
CostUSD $165 (≈ £128 UK)
ValidityRenew annually (Expert)
PrerequisiteAZ-104 (AZ-204 if earned before 31 Jul 2026)
Skills measured · 27 July 2026
AZ-400 exam objectives
Five DevOps domains, with weights set by Microsoft's 27 July 2026 update. The build/release pipelines domain alone is weighted at 50–55% — more than the other four combined. Each domain below carries Microsoft's own skill-group wording straight from the official skills outline, so you can tell exactly which domain a topic belongs to and where the gaps sit.
Azure skill mapIdentityComputeNetworkOperations
Design and implement processes and communicationsPublished weight 10–15%
76 exam-scoped practice questions in the app
Explore Processes topics
Design and implement traceability and flow of work
Design and implement appropriate metrics and queries for DevOps
Configure collaboration and communication
Tests tracing work across GitHub Projects, Azure Boards, and repositories, plus reading DevOps lifecycle metrics.
Candidates memorise metric names without knowing which lifecycle stage, planning, delivery, or operations, each one measures.
Match each metric to the specific lifecycle stage it reports on before picking an answer.
Design and implement a source control strategyPublished weight 10–15%
67 exam-scoped practice questions in the app
Explore Source Ctrl topics
Design and implement branching strategies for the source code
Configure and manage repositories
A described team's workflow has to be matched against trunk-based, feature-branch, and release-branch strategies.
Recovering or deliberately removing data from Git history often gets forgotten as its own examinable skill.
Add history recovery and removal commands to your Git toolkit alongside everyday branching commands.
Design and implement build and release pipelinesPublished weight 50–55%
291 exam-scoped practice questions in the app
Explore Pipelines topics
Design and implement a package management strategy
Design and implement a testing strategy for pipelines
Design and implement pipelines
Design and implement deployments
Design and implement infrastructure as code (IaC)
Maintain pipelines
Fluency in both Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions gets checked here, since a stem won't say which one applies.
Knowing only one pipeline ecosystem leads to misreading a stem written for the other platform.
Translate each pipeline concept into both YAML dialects, including whichever one you use less often.
Develop a security and compliance planPublished weight 10–15%
68 exam-scoped practice questions in the app
Explore Security topics
Design and implement authentication and authorization methods
Design and implement a strategy for managing sensitive information in automation
Automate security and compliance scanning
Tests choosing between a managed identity and a service principal based on how long the identity must live.
Swapping the two without noticing the scenario's lifetime constraint is the common mistake here.
Ask whether the identity dies with one resource or must outlive it before answering.
Implement an instrumentation strategyPublished weight 5–10%
45 exam-scoped practice questions in the app
Explore Monitoring topics
Configure monitoring for a DevOps environment
Analyze metrics from instrumentation
Application Insights telemetry and a basic KQL query against the logs are the practical skills under the microscope.
This smallest domain gets under-revised, and GitHub's own alerts and insights get missed as a result.
Review GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines alerting alongside Azure Monitor, not instead of it.
Decision checks
Where AZ-400 candidates slip
Work through the consequences of each operation before choosing it. These checks connect Git, hybrid execution, protected resources and delivery feedback.
Undoing a change can move history or add to it
A reversal on a shared branch needs different treatment from reconstructing a local commit that nobody else has pulled.
Use revert to record an inverse change without removing published commits.
For one-file recovery, retrieve the known version by path instead of resetting the whole branch.
Registering an agent does not choose its Windows process identity
Pool administration establishes the agent, but the account running its service controls integrated authentication to an SMB target.
Check the service account when queue access works but copying to a private share fails.
Check installed tools and advertised capabilities separately; a demand selects a machine without installing software.
Protected file access has several independent controls
Library roles govern users, Pipeline permissions authorizes YAML definitions, and Approvals and checks sets conditions on using the resource.
Authorize the intended release definition instead of granting Open access to every pipeline.
Renew stored certificate material through a new secure-file item and update its references and permissions.
A passing build does not prove the receiver accepted a notification
A webhook delivery has its own subscription state and HTTP response. Examine that exchange when an external change record is missing.
Open the subscription History to inspect the request, response and event payload.
A temporary 503 follows the retry path; exhausted retries can restrict later notifications.
Designed for AZ-400
How Azure Mastery helps you pass AZ-400
Exam-specific practice
547 AZ-400 practice questions, mapped to the 27 July 2026 outline across all five DevOps domains.
Build and release pipelines alone carries over half the exam, and coverage reflects that weighting.
Questions rehearse both Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions, since the exam won't tell you which one applies.
Predicted score
Exam IQ predicts your AZ-400 score on-device after roughly 30 questions, with a confidence range attached.
Pipelines dominate the exam, so early predictions are shaped heavily by how you handle that domain.
See exactly which domain, processes, source control, pipelines, security, or monitoring, needs more work.
Adaptive study plan
Miss a managed-identity or deployment-pattern question and a similar scenario returns in your next session.
Answer a domain correctly three sessions running and the plan moves weight onto whatever's still shaky.
Sessions are built around closing the gap to 700, not around clocking up question volume.
Knowledge decay
Monitoring is AZ-400's smallest domain, so it's also the one candidates forget fastest between sessions.
The Today screen's padlock cue tells you exactly which domain is fading before you sit the exam.
Weak-spot drills return to decayed domains before introducing anything new.
Exam rehearsal
Practise pacing. Microsoft allows marking and review; breaks and some section transitions restrict returning to earlier questions.
The question mix follows the domain weights from the 27 July 2026 outline.
Timed rehearsal uses original questions only, never anything copied from Microsoft's live paper.
Answer Coach
Names the exact mix-up behind a missed answer: a quality gate mistaken for a release gate, or the reverse.
Explains why OIDC alone doesn't grant access, and the RBAC step candidates forget to check.
A capable device may rephrase the note itself, but never before the written guidance is checked.
Aura guidance
Aura shifts focus toward whichever DevOps domain is dragging as your first week of sessions plays out.
You get a quick summary after each session showing what's better and what still needs work.
Private by design
Your AZ-400 answer history, readiness gauge, and Answer Coach notes never leave your device by default.
Pipeline and security scenarios stay confidential too: no account or server ever touches your study data.
Turn on iCloud sync only when you want these results backed up somewhere else.
10-week study plan
Suggested AZ-400 study plan
Follow this suggested ten-week route, adjusting the pace to your experience. Build from team workflows and Git to pipelines, deployment, security and monitoring. Finish with focused review and timed practice.
Process and communication
Plan work with Azure Boards, dashboards and GitHub Flow.
Track cycle time, lead time and recovery time.
Connect team documentation, wikis, webhooks and Teams.
Source control
Compare trunk-based, feature and release branches.
Practise pull requests and branch protection rules.
Manage large repositories, recover Git data and clean history.
Packages and dependencies
Publish packages with GitHub Packages and Azure Artifacts.
Manage feeds, dependencies and artifact versions.
Compare SemVer and CalVer; configure quality and release gates.
Build pipelines
Write YAML for Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions.
Choose agents and runners; configure triggers and stages.
Reuse templates and add environment checks and approvals.
Automated testing
Compare unit, integration and load tests.
Configure test tasks, agents and results integration.
Use code coverage to identify gaps.
Deployment strategies
Compare blue-green, canary, ring and progressive releases.
Use feature flags, A/B testing, slots and hotfix paths.
Practise container and database deployments.
Infrastructure and maintenance
Deploy with Bicep, ARM templates and Azure Deployment Environments.
Review Azure Automation State Configuration and Azure Machine Configuration.
Monitor pipeline health, optimise cost and speed, set retention and migrate to YAML.
Security and compliance
Configure identities, tokens, service connections and permissions.
Protect secrets with Key Vault, secure files and workload identity federation.
Review Defender for DevOps, GitHub Advanced Security, Dependabot, CodeQL and container scans.
Monitoring and instrumentation
Connect Azure Monitor, Logs and Application Insights to DevOps tools.
Review resource Insights, GitHub Insights and pipeline alerts.
Practise metrics analysis, distributed tracing and basic KQL.
Review and rehearse
Revisit weaker topics with Focus Weak Spots and decay alerts.
Complete two timed, 100-minute Exam Simulator sessions.
Review mistakes and use practice results to guide further study.
Frequently asked
AZ-400 FAQs
What prerequisite accompanies AZ-400 for the Expert credential?
Microsoft lists Azure Administrator Associate or Azure Developer Associate as the certification prerequisite alongside AZ-400. The AZ-204 exam retired on 31 July 2026, so new candidates can use AZ-104 (Azure Administrator Associate) for the qualifying Associate credential. This is a credential requirement, rather than a claim that AZ-400 alone earns the Expert badge.
What's the going rate for an AZ-400 exam attempt?
The AZ-400 voucher is USD $165 in the US, or around £128 in the UK — pricing varies by region. Microsoft sometimes runs free-voucher promotions around Build or Ignite. The DevOps Engineer Expert tier also needs annual renewal, free and online, once earned.
Will my DevOps Engineer Expert badge lapse if I don't renew?
Yes. Expert certifications including DevOps Engineer Expert expire annually. Renewal is a free, short online assessment on Microsoft Learn within six months of your expiry date, targeting recent outline updates.
If I fail AZ-400, how long before I can retake it?
Not immediately, and each attempt needs its own voucher.
First retake: after 24 hours.
All subsequent retakes: a 14-day wait each.
Cap: five total attempts within 12 months of the first attempt.
What's a realistic AZ-400 study timeline?
Plan eight to twelve weeks, even if you already hold AZ-104 or AZ-204. AZ-400 covers an enormous surface: both pipeline ecosystems, both repository platforms, Bicep and ARM, plus security scanning and monitoring. Don't book until the readiness gauge shows around 730 or higher.
AZ-400 vs AZ-305 — which Expert cert should I take?
Pick the one that matches your role. AZ-400 is for SREs, platform engineers, and developers who own CI/CD; AZ-305 is for architects designing the systems those pipelines deploy. Both use Azure Administrator Associate as a prerequisite, and they're complementary rather than competing.
Does AZ-400 really test both Azure DevOps and GitHub equally?
The published outline expects experience with both GitHub and Azure DevOps, but it does not assign an equal share of questions to each platform. Practise each named task in the relevant tools: connecting repositories, expressing pipeline rules and controlling deployment access.
What does the AZ-400 exam format actually look like?
AZ-400 follows Microsoft's general 40–60 question format, with the mix varying by sitting. Azure Mastery's bank weights single-answer and scenario-based items heaviest, with multi-select, drag-and-drop, and linked case-study questions filling out the rest — all original practice content.
Can I try Azure Mastery's AZ-400 content before buying the full bank?
Yes. The app is free to download, with 50+ free AZ-400 questions and written explanations. The full bank of 547 AZ-400 practice questions unlocks with a one-time exam-pack purchase, or unlock every exam with a subscription or lifetime upgrade. Advanced study tools require Pro.
Free study guides
Free guides that pair with AZ-400
Where AZ-400 fits
Certification path that includes AZ-400
AZ-400 is the expert-level exam for Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert. Azure Developer Associate retired on 31 July 2026; an Azure Developer Associate credential earned before that date still satisfies the prerequisite, but new candidates now reach it through Azure Administrator Associate instead.
Azure Developer Associate retired on 31 July 2026, so new candidates now reach the AZ-400 prerequisite through AZ-104 instead; an Azure Developer Associate credential earned before that date still counts. Architects often add the sibling AZ-305 exam.
Ready to pass AZ-400?
Download Azure Mastery free. 547 AZ-400 practice questions across five DevOps domains. Work through release decisions, read the reasoning after each answer, and revisit the conditions you missed on your iPhone or iPad.
Azure Mastery
Exam AZ-400
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