Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer ExpertStudy guide
The expert certification for designing and implementing CI/CD, source control, security, and monitoring with Azure DevOps / GitHub (AZ-400).
About Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400)
Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400) is a Professional / Expert-level certification from Microsoft. This page organizes the exam scope into a 5-chapter, 15-section study guide and lets you check your understanding with exam-style practice questions. A good flow is to read the chapters below in order, then test yourself via "Practice questions."
Exam domains (approximate weighting)
- Configure processes and communications~12%
- Design and implement source control~18%
- Design and implement build and release pipelines~45%
- Develop a security and compliance plan~13%
- Implement an instrumentation strategy~12%
Weights are approximate guidance for the live exam. Each domain is covered in detail in the chapters and sections below.
Official exam information: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/resources/study-guides/az-400
1Configure Processes and Communications
- 1.1Agile Planning and Work Tracking
Understand agile planning—Azure Boards, work items, backlogs/sprints, and Kanban. Visualize team work and manage the flow of value.
- 1.2DevOps Metrics and Flow
Understand DevOps improvement metrics—DORA metrics (deployment frequency/lead time for changes/change failure rate/MTTR), cycle time, and dashboards. Improve continuously with data.
- 1.3Collaboration and Integration
Understand team collaboration—notifications/service hooks, Teams/Slack integration, Wikis, traceability (work item ↔ commit ↔ build), and auditing. Design information flow and traceability.
2Design and Implement Source Control
- 2.1Git and Branching Strategy
Understand source control foundations—Git (distributed VCS), branching strategies (trunk-based / GitHub Flow / GitFlow), feature branches, and merge vs rebase. Develop safely in parallel as a team.
- 2.2Pull Requests and Code Review
Understand quality gates—pull requests (PRs), branch policies, required reviewers/build validation, and work item linking. Integrate only changes that pass review and automated checks.
- 2.3Repository Management and Security
Understand repository governance—access permissions, large files (Git LFS), submodules, secret scanning, and mono-repo vs multi-repo. Keep repositories healthy and secure.
3Design and Implement Build and Release Pipelines
- 3.1CI Pipelines and Builds
Understand continuous integration—Azure Pipelines (YAML), triggers, agents (Microsoft-hosted/self-hosted), templates/stages, and automated tests. Build and validate automatically on every commit.
- 3.2CD and Deployment Strategies
Understand continuous delivery—release pipelines/environments, approvals/gates, deployment strategies (blue-green/canary/rolling), and feature flags. Deliver to production safely.
- 3.3Managing IaC, Dependencies, and Secrets
Understand pipeline surroundings—IaC (ARM/Bicep/Terraform), package management (Azure Artifacts), service connections, secrets (Key Vault/variable groups), and agents. Achieve reproducible, secure delivery.
4Develop a Security and Compliance Plan
- 4.1Integrating Security into Pipelines (DevSecOps)
Understand shifting security left—SAST/DAST, dependency scanning, container image scanning, IaC scanning, and GitHub Advanced Security. Detect vulnerabilities early in the pipeline.
- 4.2Managing Secrets and Credentials
Understand handling secrets safely—Key Vault, variable groups/secret variables, managed identity/workload identity federation, secret scanning, and least privilege. Prevent credential leakage.
- 4.3Compliance and Governance
Understand control and trails—approvals/audit logs, Azure Policy, environment protection (checks), license/compliance management, and separation of duties. Meet regulatory requirements while shipping fast.
5Implement an Instrumentation Strategy
- 5.1Designing Logging and Metrics
Understand observability foundations—Azure Monitor, Log Analytics (KQL), metrics, distributed tracing, and structured logs. Aggregate telemetry and make system state visible.
- 5.2APM, Alerts, and Automated Response
Understand app monitoring and notification—Application Insights, alert rules/action groups, autoscale, health checks/availability tests, and auto-remediation. Detect and respond to issues immediately.
- 5.3Feedback and SRE Practices
Understand continuous feedback—SLI/SLO/error budgets, blast radius control, postmortems, continuous improvement, and user feedback. Improve reliability through learning.