The short version
AZ-400 is Microsoft’s expert-level DevOps exam. It asks whether you can design and run the whole delivery flow: planning and tracking work, source control, build and release pipelines, security, and monitoring, across both Azure DevOps and GitHub. Just over half of the exam is about pipelines. This guide follows the study guide that Microsoft lists as “Skills measured as of July 27, 2026”.
What the exam is
The full name is Exam AZ-400: Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions. It is the exam you pass to earn the Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert credential. Microsoft lists no other exam for that credential and shows no retirement date for AZ-400.
Notice the two verbs in the title. You are expected to design a solution and also to implement it. A question may ask which branching strategy suits a team, and the next one may ask which YAML keyword limits how many matrix jobs run at once. The exam rewards people who have actually built pipelines, because the details are hard to guess.
Who it is for
Microsoft describes the role as a developer or infrastructure administrator who also knows how to work with people, processes, and products to deliver value continuously. The typical teammates are developers, site reliability engineers, Azure administrators, and security engineers.
Microsoft says you need experience both administering and developing in Azure, with strong skills in at least one of those areas. You should also have experience implementing both GitHub and Azure DevOps solutions. The prerequisites page explains what that means in practice, including the associate certification that the credential requires.
Format at a glance
| Item | What Microsoft says |
|---|---|
| Exam code | AZ-400 |
| Credential | Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert |
| Passing score | 700 on a scale of 1 to 1,000 |
| Exam time | Not listed on the AZ-400 page; Microsoft’s general rule is 100 or 120 minutes for associate and expert exams (see the exam format page) |
| Number of questions | Not published; Microsoft says most exams have 40 to 60 |
| Languages | English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Korean, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Traditional), Italian |
| Retirement date | None listed |
| Price | Depends on the country or region where you sit the exam; check Microsoft’s page |
The exam format page covers timing, scoring, breaks, and retakes.
The five domains and their weightings
| Domain | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 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% |
Processes and communications
How work flows from idea to delivery. This covers GitHub Flow, tracking work with Azure Boards and GitHub Projects, traceability from a work item to a commit and a release, DevOps metrics such as cycle time and lead time, wikis and release notes, and integration with webhooks and Microsoft Teams.
Source control strategy
Branching strategies (trunk-based, feature branch, release branch), pull request workflows with branch policies and branch protection rules, and repository management. The management side includes large files, scaling a big repository, permissions, tags, and recovering or removing data with Git.
Build and release pipelines
The giant of the exam. It covers package management, testing strategy, pipeline design in YAML, deployment strategies, infrastructure as code, and keeping pipelines healthy and affordable. Both GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines are in scope.
Security and compliance plan
Authentication and authorization for pipelines (service principals, managed identities, GitHub Apps, service connections), secrets and secretless authentication, and automated scanning for dependencies, code, secrets, and licenses.
Instrumentation strategy
Azure Monitor, Application Insights, alerts for pipelines, and reading logs with basic Kusto Query Language (KQL). It is the smallest domain, so give it proportionate time.
Official source
For the vendor’s own pages, see the Microsoft Learn AZ-400 exam page and the study guide. They are the final authority if anything here differs.
More guides for AZ-400
- AZ-400 Study Plan: 4-Week and 8-Week
- AZ-400 Sample Questions With Answers
- Is AZ-400 Hard? An Honest Difficulty Check
- AZ-400 Renewal and Retakes Explained
- Is AZ-400 Worth It? An Honest Look
- AZ-400 Cheat Sheet: Key Facts to Review
- AZ-104 vs AZ-400: Which First?
- AZ-305 vs AZ-400: Which Exam First?
Next step
Read the domains explained page to see where your time should go. When you want to check yourself, our AZ-400 practice tests are five original practice sets built around these five domains.
Frequently asked questions
Does AZ-400 expire?
The credential does. Microsoft says expert certifications expire annually, and you renew for free by passing an online assessment on Microsoft Learn during a six-month window before expiry.
Do I need to know both Azure DevOps and GitHub?
Yes, Microsoft expects experience implementing both. The skills list names GitHub Actions, GitHub Advanced Security, and Azure Pipelines side by side.
Is the exam available in English only?
No. Microsoft lists ten languages. English is updated first, and Microsoft says other languages follow about eight weeks later.