Microsoft

AZ-400 prep

For DevOps engineers who design and run source control, CI/CD, security and monitoring across Azure DevOps and GitHub, leading to the DevOps Engineer Expert certification.

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The real exam

Exam code	AZ-400
Certification	Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert
Questions	Typically 40 to 60, including at least one case study
Time	100 minutes of exam time (about 120 minutes seat time)
Pass mark	700 on a 1 to 1000 scale (scaled, not a fixed 70%)
Fee	$165 (US list price, regional pricing applies)
Skills outline	Skills measured as of 27 July 2026
Prerequisite	Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104). Existing Azure Developer Associate holders still qualify, but AZ-204 retired on 31 July 2026, so new candidates normally take AZ-104 first.
Microsoft Learn	Open in a split screen during the exam, no extra time, the clock keeps running
Format	Pearson VUE test centre or online proctored (OnVUE)
Validity	12 months, renew free online on Microsoft Learn in the 6 months before expiry
Retakes	24 hours after the first fail, then 14 days between attempts, up to 5 attempts in 12 months

What you get

lessons

hours of reading

280

original questions

full mock exams

Mocks follow the real rules: 50 questions in 100 minutes, flag and review.

Syllabus

Design and implement processes and communications12%

Work tracking with GitHub and Azure Boards, traceability, flow and DORA metrics, dashboards, wikis, release notes, webhooks and chat integration. Published weight 10 to 15%.

Design and implement a source control strategy12%

Branching strategies, pull request workflows, branch policies and protection rules, large files, repo scale, permissions, tags and recovering or removing data. Published weight 10 to 15%.

Design and implement build and release pipelines52%

Packages and feeds, testing and gates, Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions design, agents and runners, templates, environments, deployment strategies, IaC and pipeline maintenance. Published weight 50 to 55%.

Develop a security and compliance plan15%

Service principals, managed identities, workload identity federation, tokens, access levels, Key Vault and secrets, GitHub Advanced Security, Dependabot and Defender for Cloud. Published weight 10 to 15%.

Implement an instrumentation strategy9%

Azure Monitor, Application Insights, VM and Container Insights, pipeline alerts, distributed tracing and basic KQL. Published weight 5 to 10%.

Course outline

Processes and communications · 4 lessons
Source control strategy · 4 lessons
Packages and testing · 4 lessons
Designing pipelines · 6 lessons
Deployment strategies · 4 lessons
Infrastructure as code and pipeline maintenance · 4 lessons
Security and compliance · 4 lessons
Instrumentation and feedback · 3 lessons
Weak spots · 8 lessons
Worked scenarios · 4 lessons
Exam day · 1 lessons

Try a question

Your company plans work in Azure Boards, but the developers moved their code to GitHub. Product owners must see, on each user story, the commits and pull requests that implemented it. You need a solution that requires the least administrative effort. What should you do?

A. Mirror every GitHub repository into Azure Repos on a schedule and link the work items to the mirrored commits instead

B. Create a service hook in Azure DevOps that posts each work item update to a GitHub webhook endpoint

C. Install the Azure Boards app for GitHub, connect the repositories to the project and mention work items with AB#

D. Ask developers to paste the pull request URL into a custom field on each user story after merging

Show answer

Answer: C. The Azure Boards app for GitHub is the supported integration. After the repositories are connected to the Azure DevOps project, a commit message, pull request title or description that contains AB# followed by the work item ID creates a link. The links show in the work item's Development section, giving traceability from story to code.

An auditor asks you to prove, for any production release, which work items were included and which automated tests ran against that build. You use Azure Pipelines and Azure Boards with Azure Repos. What gives you this traceability with the least custom work?

A. Ask the release manager to attach a manual change list document to every pipeline run

B. Link work items via commits and pull requests, publish test results, and use the run's work items and Tests tab

C. Export the git log between tags into a wiki page and paste the test console output beneath it

D. Store the test results as build artifacts and require reviewers to download and open the zip file for each release

Show answer

Answer: B. Azure Pipelines associates a run with the work items linked to the commits it built, and the PublishTestResults task, or test tasks that publish automatically, attach results to the run. Together they give end to end traceability from requirement to code to test to release without extra tooling.

Passwell is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Microsoft or GitHub. Microsoft, Azure, Azure DevOps and GitHub are trademarks of their respective owners. All questions and lessons are original. Facts checked 2026-11-14.