Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions (AZ-400)

This page breaks AZ-400 (Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions) into 10 expert-level DevOps sections mapped to the skills measured. Work through the sections in order, then switch to mixed practice to simulate exam conditions.

Vendor: Microsoft Credential: Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert Exam: AZ-400 Practice: domain then mixed
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AZ-400 coverage (10 sections)

Use the practice button on each card to open the quiz set for that domain in a new tab.

Flow of Work Design: Traceability, Work Item Integration, and Feedback Loops

S01

What you will practice:

  • Design and implement traceability and flow of work
  • Structure the flow of work (including GitHub Flow)
  • Feedback cycles strategy (notifications + GitHub Issues)
  • Integrate work tracking across tools (GitHub Projects, Azure Boards, repositories)
  • Source/bug/quality traceability (linking commits, PRs, builds, releases, work items, test outcomes)
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Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

DevOps Metrics, Dashboards, and Query Strategy

S02

What you will practice:

  • Design and implement appropriate metrics and queries for DevOps
  • Dashboards for flow metrics: cycle time, lead time, time to recovery
  • Metrics/queries for:
  • project planning
  • development
  • testing
  • security
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Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

Collaboration & Communication Engineering (Docs, Integrations, Notifications)

S03

What you will practice:

  • Configure collaboration and communication
  • Project documentation via wikis + process diagrams (Markdown + Mermaid)
  • Release documentation: release notes + API documentation
  • Automate documentation generation from Git history
  • Integrations using webhooks
  • Azure Boards ↔ GitHub repo integration
  • GitHub/Azure DevOps ↔ Microsoft Teams integration
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Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

Source Control Strategy: Branching Models and PR Governance

S04

What you will practice:

  • Design and implement branching strategies
  • Branch strategy selection: trunk-based, feature branches, release branches
  • Pull request workflow design using:
  • branch policies (Azure Repos/Azure DevOps)
  • branch protections (GitHub)
  • Enforce merge restrictions (required reviewers, build validation, status checks, linear history, etc.) via policies/protections
Practice this section ↗

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

Repository Operations at Scale: Large Files, Performance, Permissions, and Data Hygiene

S05

What you will practice:

  • Configure and manage repositories
  • Large file strategy: Git LFS, git-fat
  • Scale/optimize Git repos: Scalar, cross-repository sharing
  • Repository permissions configuration
  • Tag strategy for organizing the repository (release tags, semantic tags, etc.)
  • Recover specific data using Git commands (revert/reset/cherry-pick/reflog concepts)
  • Remove sensitive/unwanted data from source control (history rewriting strategy concepts)
Practice this section ↗

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

Artifact & Dependency Management: Feeds, Upstreams, and Versioning (Packages + Pipeline Artifacts)

S06

What you will practice:

  • Design and implement a package management strategy
  • Select tooling: GitHub Packages and Azure Artifacts
  • Implement feeds and views (local packages + upstream sources)
  • Dependency versioning strategy:
  • SemVer (semantic versioning)
  • CalVer (date-based versioning)
  • Versioning strategy for pipeline artifacts (build outputs, drop artifacts, packaged releases)
Practice this section ↗

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

Pipeline Quality Engineering: Testing Strategy, Gates, Coverage, and Results

S07

What you will practice:

  • Design and implement a testing strategy for pipelines
  • Quality & release gates (including security + governance gates)
  • Comprehensive testing strategy:
  • local tests
  • unit tests
  • integration tests
  • load tests
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Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

CI/CD Pipeline Architecture: YAML, Triggers, Runners/Agents, Templates, Approvals

S08

What you will practice:

  • Design and implement pipelines
  • Choose a deployment automation solution: GitHub Actions vs Azure Pipelines
  • Design runner/agent infrastructure (cost, tooling, licensing, connectivity, maintainability)
  • Integrate GitHub repos with Azure Pipelines
  • Trigger rules (PR triggers, path filters, scheduled triggers, multi-repo triggers)
  • Build pipelines with YAML
  • Job execution order strategy:
Practice this section ↗

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

Release & Deployment Strategy + IaC: Progressive Delivery, Ordering, DB Deployments, Desired State

S09

What you will practice:

  • Design and implement deployments
  • Deployment strategies:
  • blue-green
  • canary
  • ring
  • progressive exposure
  • feature flags
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Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

Security/Compliance Automation + Instrumentation/Monitoring (DevOps Security + Observability)

S10

What you will practice:

  • A) Security and compliance plan
  • Authentication and authorization methods
  • Choose Service Principals vs Managed Identity (system-assigned vs user-assigned)
  • GitHub auth: GitHub Apps, GITHUB_TOKEN, PATs
  • Azure DevOps service connections + PATs
  • Permissions/roles:
  • GitHub permissions model
Practice this section ↗

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

FAQ

How should I use the 10 sections on this page?

Start with one section at a time, complete the practice set for that section, then review the explanations and repeat missed concepts. After you cover all sections, switch to mixed practice under time pressure.

Do the practice buttons open in a new tab?

Yes. Each section includes a button that opens the quiz set for that section in a new tab.

Is this outline aligned to the real AZ-400 skills measured?

Yes. The sections are organized to match the official AZ-400 skills measured, including processes and communications, source control, build and release pipelines, security and compliance, and instrumentation/monitoring.

Does passing AZ-400 alone earn the DevOps Engineer Expert certification?

AZ-400 is the required expert exam for the Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert credential. To earn the certification badge, Microsoft also requires an active prerequisite certification, typically Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) or Azure Developer Associate (AZ-204).