AZ-400
AZ-400: Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions
Everything you need for Microsoft exam AZ-400: format, passing score, the five skill areas, a four-week study plan and free DevOps sample questions.
- Duration
- 100-120 min
- Passing score
- 700 / 1000
- Level
- Expert
- Languages
- 10
AZ-400, Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions, is the single exam behind the Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert credential. It tests whether you can take code from a developer’s branch to a running, monitored, secured production environment using GitHub, Azure DevOps and Azure, and whether you can design the process around that flow: how work is tracked, how branches are protected, how releases are rolled out and how failures are noticed.
It is an expert-level exam with a prerequisite. To earn the certification you must also hold an associate credential: Microsoft’s certification page names Azure Administrator Associate (exam AZ-104) or Azure Developer Associate. Microsoft has since retired the Azure Developer Associate certification, so for a new candidate the practical route is AZ-104. The exam audience is a developer or infrastructure administrator with experience on both GitHub and Azure DevOps.
The weighting is lopsided. One domain, build and release pipelines, carries 50-55% of the exam, so the exam rewards people who write pipelines every week: YAML, triggers, templates, environments, deployment strategies, infrastructure as code and package feeds.
What the exam covers
| Skill area | Weight |
|---|---|
| Design and implement processes and communications | 10-15% |
| Design and implement a source control strategy | 10-15% |
| Design and implement build and release pipelines | 50-55% |
| Develop a security and compliance plan | 10-15% |
| Implement an instrumentation strategy | 5-10% |
The English exam was last updated on July 27, 2026. The change log marks the domain structure as unchanged and lists only minor edits to work-flow traceability, security scanning and monitoring.
Where to start
Read the exam format for the mechanics and the weights, then the study plan, which fits in four weeks if you already build pipelines. If you are choosing between expert tracks, see AZ-305 vs AZ-400. Then work through the five domain guides, starting with build and release pipelines, and test yourself with the free practice test.
AZ-400 guides
- AZ-400 exam format: questions, score and costThe AZ-400 format: 100 or 120 minutes, passing score 700, 10 languages, question types, pricing and what the five domain weights mean for your revision.
- AZ-400 vs AZ-104: which exam first?AZ-400 vs AZ-104: the DevOps expert exam builds on the Azure Administrator associate exam. What each tests, why AZ-104 comes first, and what carries over.
- AZ-400 study plan: pass in 4 weeksA four-week AZ-400 study plan: source control and work tracking, pipelines, deployments and IaC, then security and monitoring, with a lab each week.
- Free AZ-400 sample questions with answersFive free AZ-400 practice questions on traceability, branch policies, YAML stages, federated credentials and tracing, each with an explained answer.
- AZ-400 processes and communications explainedThe AZ-400 processes domain explained: flow of work, traceability, DevOps metrics, wikis, Mermaid, webhooks and the Boards and GitHub integration.
- AZ-400 source control strategy explainedThe AZ-400 source control domain explained: trunk-based, feature and release branches, branch policies, protection rules, Git LFS, Scalar and recovery.
- AZ-400 build and release pipelines explainedThe AZ-400 pipelines domain explained: YAML, triggers, templates, agents, deployment strategies, IaC with Bicep, packages and pipeline maintenance.
- AZ-400 security and compliance explainedThe AZ-400 security domain explained: managed identities, OIDC federation, Key Vault, GitHub Advanced Security, Dependabot and Defender for Cloud.
- AZ-400 instrumentation strategy explainedThe AZ-400 instrumentation domain explained: Application Insights, Azure Monitor Logs, VM and container insights, pipeline alerts, tracing and basic KQL.
- AZ-400 prerequisites and exam tipsAZ-400 prerequisites: the associate certification the DevOps Engineer Expert needs, the experience Microsoft expects, and exam tips for YAML questions.
- Free AZ-400 practice test: 20 questionsA free 20-question AZ-400 practice test on work tracking, branching, YAML pipelines, deployments, IaC, security and monitoring, with explained answers.
- AZ-400 study resourcesWhat to study for AZ-400: the official study guide and practice assessment, the Azure DevOps and GitHub documentation worth reading, and six labs.
- AZ-400 cheat sheetA one-page AZ-400 reference: the five skill areas, which feature answers each DevOps requirement, deployment strategies, YAML keywords and common traps.
- Is AZ-400 hard? Exam difficulty explainedHow hard AZ-400 really is: why the pipelines weighting, two toolchains and reading YAML matter more than any single Azure service.
- Is AZ-400 worth it? Who should take itIs AZ-400 worth taking? Who benefits, what it costs, the associate prerequisite and how the DevOps Engineer Expert credential compares.
- AZ-400 career: DevOps engineer rolesWhat AZ-400 leads to: Microsoft's DevOps Engineer role, the four teams it works with, the GitHub plus Azure DevOps expectation and what to add next.
- AZ-400 renewal and retake rulesAZ-400 renewal is a free 45-minute assessment, the DevOps expert is not tied to AZ-104's expiry, and the Azure Developer route is retired. Retake limits.
- AZ-400 study scenarios: three profilesAZ-400 study scenarios: an Azure Pipelines author, an AZ-104 administrator new to CI/CD and a GitHub-only developer, mapped to the domain weights.