Microsoft's skills measured for AZ-400 as of July 27, 2026, mapped to the chapters of Ultra Transcenders AZ-400: Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions.
| Objective | Chapters |
|---|---|
| Design and implement processes and communications (10–15%) | |
| Design and implement traceability and flow of work | 1. Planning and tracking work: GitHub and Azure Boards |
| Design and implement appropriate metrics and queries for DevOps | 2. DevOps metrics, dashboards and collaboration; 13. Monitoring and instrumentation for DevOps |
| Configure collaboration and communication | 1. Planning and tracking work: GitHub and Azure Boards; 2. DevOps metrics, dashboards and collaboration |
| Design and implement a source control strategy (10–15%) | |
| Design and implement branching strategies for the source code | 3. Branching strategies and pull request workflows |
| Configure and manage repositories | 3. Branching strategies and pull request workflows; 4. Managing and optimising Git repositories |
| Design and implement build and release pipelines (50–55%) | |
| Design and implement a package management strategy | 5. Package management and versioning |
| Design and implement a testing strategy for pipelines | 6. Testing strategies and quality gates |
| Design and implement pipelines | 7. Pipelines and agent infrastructure; 8. Advanced pipeline design and maintenance |
| Design and implement deployments | 3. Branching strategies and pull request workflows; 9. Deployment strategies |
| Design and implement infrastructure as code (IaC) | 10. Infrastructure as code and configuration management |
| Maintain pipelines | 2. DevOps metrics, dashboards and collaboration; 5. Package management and versioning; 6. Testing strategies and quality gates; 7. Pipelines and agent infrastructure; 8. Advanced pipeline design and maintenance |
| Develop a security and compliance plan (10–15%) | |
| Design and implement authentication and authorization methods | 4. Managing and optimising Git repositories; 11. Identity, permissions and secrets in DevOps |
| Design and implement a strategy for managing sensitive information in automation | 8. Advanced pipeline design and maintenance; 10. Infrastructure as code and configuration management; 11. Identity, permissions and secrets in DevOps |
| Automate security and compliance scanning | 12. Security and compliance scanning |
| Implement an instrumentation strategy (5–10%) | |
| Configure monitoring for a DevOps environment | 13. Monitoring and instrumentation for DevOps |
| Analyze metrics from instrumentation | 13. Monitoring and instrumentation for DevOps |
The full list of tasks under each objective is in the official AZ-400 study guide and practice assessment. The book is organised by technology, so one chapter often serves several objectives.