Why This Cheat Sheet Matters for AZ-400
This cheat sheet covers the most important Azure Pipelines & GitHub Actions concepts tested on the AZ-400 (Azure DevOps Engineer Expert) certification exam. It contains 2 sections with 8 key points that you should memorize before exam day. Design and implement CI/CD pipelines with YAML, multi-stage deployments, templates, and pipeline security. Use this as a quick-reference guide during your final review sessions.
Azure Pipelines
- YAML pipelines: trigger → stages → jobs → steps (tasks).
- Templates: extend from shared templates for consistency across teams.
- Variable groups: centralized variables with Key Vault integration.
- Service connections: authenticate to external services (Azure, Docker, NuGet).
GitHub Actions
- Workflows: on (trigger) → jobs → steps (uses/run).
- Secrets: repository, environment, or organization-level encrypted values.
- Environments: deployment protection rules with required reviewers and wait timers.
- Reusable workflows: called with workflow_call trigger for DRY pipelines.
Practice Pipelines Questions
Put your knowledge to the test with practice questions.
Azure Quick Reference Tips
Azure services follow consistent naming patterns that help with exam recall. Resource Manager (ARM) templates use JSON, while Bicep provides a cleaner DSL for infrastructure as code. Remember that Azure resources are organised in a hierarchy: Management Groups → Subscriptions → Resource Groups → Resources.