Question 65 of 1,000

PCDE Practice Question: Building and Implementing CI/CD Pipelines for a Service

This PCDE practice question tests your understanding of building and implementing ci/cd pipelines for a service. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.

A company uses Cloud Deploy to deploy to multiple GKE clusters (dev, staging, prod). They want to implement a canary deployment strategy for the prod target. The canary should deploy 10% of pods initially, then after 30 minutes and a manual approval, promote to 100%. Which configurations are necessary? (Choose THREE).

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

Set the canary percentage to 10% and the promotion interval to 30m.

Option A is correct because setting the canary percentage to 10% and the promotion interval to 30m directly implements the required behavior: initially 10% of pods receive traffic, and after 30 minutes the deployment automatically attempts promotion. This matches the canary deployment strategy in Cloud Deploy where the `canaryDeployment` configuration specifies `percentages` and `verify` intervals.

Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

  • Set the canary percentage to 10% and the promotion interval to 30m.

    Why this is correct

    This defines the initial canary percentage and the wait time before promotion.

    Related concept

    Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

  • Add an approval gate on the prod target.

    Why this is correct

    The manual approval gate pauses the pipeline for approval before promoting to 100%.

    Related concept

    Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

  • Define a canary strategy in the prod target within the delivery pipeline.

    Why this is correct

    The strategy must be set to 'canary'.

    Related concept

    Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

  • Set the strategy to 'blue/green' with a 10% initial pool.

    Why it's wrong here

    Blue/green does not support gradual percentages like canary.

  • Create a separate delivery pipeline for canary deployments.

    Why it's wrong here

    Delivery pipelines can contain multiple targets; no need for separate pipelines.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

Google Cloud often tests the distinction between canary and blue/green strategies, trapping candidates who confuse 'initial pool' percentages with canary incremental percentages, or who think separate pipelines are required for different deployment strategies.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Cloud Deploy's canary strategy uses a `canaryDeployment` object with a list of `percentages` (e.g., [10]) and optional `verify` boolean. The promotion interval is set via the `--promotion-interval` flag or `skaffold.yaml` `deploy` `promotionInterval`. After the interval, if no manual approval gate is present, the pipeline auto-promotes; with an approval gate, the pipeline pauses until manual approval is granted, enabling the 30-minute wait plus human check before full rollout.

KKey Concepts to Remember

  • Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
  • Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
  • Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.

TExam Day Tips

  • Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
  • Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.

Key takeaway

Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.

Real-world example

How this comes up in practice

A cloud solutions architect for a retail company is evaluating services for a new workload. The correct answer here reflects best practice for the specific scenario described — not a general cloud recommendation. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Cloud exam questions reward reading the constraint carefully: the same technology can be right or wrong depending on the use case.

What to study next

Got this wrong? Here's your next step.

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

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FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this PCDE question test?

Building and Implementing CI/CD Pipelines for a Service — This question tests Building and Implementing CI/CD Pipelines for a Service — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Set the canary percentage to 10% and the promotion interval to 30m. — Option A is correct because setting the canary percentage to 10% and the promotion interval to 30m directly implements the required behavior: initially 10% of pods receive traffic, and after 30 minutes the deployment automatically attempts promotion. This matches the canary deployment strategy in Cloud Deploy where the `canaryDeployment` configuration specifies `percentages` and `verify` intervals.

What should I do if I get this PCDE question wrong?

Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.

What is the key concept behind this question?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026

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This PCDE practice question is part of Courseiva's free Google Cloud 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 PCDE exam.