hardMultiple Choice
200-901 Practice Question: A CI/CD pipeline for network automation includes…
A CI/CD pipeline for network automation includes a stage that runs Ansible playbooks against a staging environment. The pipeline is triggered by Git commits. After a commit, the pipeline fails because the Ansible inventory file is missing. What is the most likely reason?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the concept that CI/CD pipelines operate on the exact state of the repository at the commit, so any file not tracked by Git (e.g., due to .gitignore) will be missing, even if it exists locally on the developer's machine.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The inventory file is listed in .gitignore
The most likely reason the Ansible inventory file is missing is that it is listed in .gitignore, which prevents it from being tracked by Git and thus not present in the repository when the pipeline clones it. Since the pipeline is triggered by Git commits, it only has access to files that are committed and pushed. If the inventory file is ignored, it will not be available for the Ansible playbook execution, causing the pipeline to fail.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
The inventory file is listed in .gitignore
Why this is correct
The inventory file is excluded from version control by .gitignore, so the commit-triggered pipeline checkout never receives it, causing Ansible to fail when resolving hosts. This directly satisfies the stem's constraint: the pipeline runs against a fresh clone, so any untracked file is absent regardless of its local existence.
- ✗
The pipeline script has a typo in the inventory path
Why it's wrong here
A typo would fail consistently from the first run, not appear only after a commit. The tempting appeal is that path errors do produce missing-file messages, but the trigger here is the commit itself, which points to the inventory file being untracked or excluded by .gitignore rather than a mistyped path.
- ✗
The Ansible version in the pipeline is incompatible
Why it's wrong here
An incompatible Ansible version produces module or syntax errors, not a missing inventory file. Version pinning is genuinely relevant when playbooks use newer module parameters, but the reported symptom is a file-resolution failure, so the version axis cannot explain it.
- ✗
The staging environment is not reachable
Why it's wrong here
Unreachable staging hosts cause connection timeouts or SSH failures, not a missing inventory file, which Ansible resolves locally before contacting devices. Reachability checks belong in a separate pipeline stage; the stem's error occurs earlier, at inventory parsing.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 200-901 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Cisco certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 200-901 exam.