AZ-400 Practice Question: Design and implement build and release pipelines
Which THREE components are required to set up a self-hosted agent in Azure Pipelines? (Choose three.)
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse a service connection (needed for deploying to Azure) with the authentication mechanism required to register the agent itself, leading them to select Option A instead of recognizing that only the PAT with Agent Pools scope is needed.
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
✓
A personal access token (PAT) with Agent Pools (read, manage) scope
A personal access token (PAT) with Agent Pools (read, manage) scope is required because the self-hosted agent uses this token to authenticate with Azure DevOps during the configuration step. The agent registers itself into the specified agent pool, and the PAT must have the 'Agent Pools (read, manage)' scope to authorize this registration and subsequent communication.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
An Azure Resource Manager service connection
Why it's wrong here
An Azure Resource Manager service connection is used to authenticate pipeline tasks to Azure resources, not to register an agent with Azure DevOps. Agent registration and authentication are handled separately via a personal access token scoped to Agent Pools.
- ✓
A personal access token (PAT) with Agent Pools (read, manage) scope
Why this is correct
A PAT scoped to Agent Pools (read, manage) is required because it is the primary authentication mechanism for registering a self-hosted agent against an Azure DevOps organization. This token grants the agent the necessary permissions to appear in the target agent pool and receive job assignments.
- ✓
A machine (virtual or physical) to run the agent software
Why this is correct
A physical or virtual machine is foundational because self-hosted agents are installed and executed on infrastructure you control. The machine must have a supported operating system, internet connectivity to Azure DevOps, and sufficient resources to run pipeline jobs.
- ✓
The agent software downloaded from the Azure DevOps organization
Why this is correct
The agent software package downloaded from Azure DevOps contains the agent listener binaries and configuration utilities needed to connect the machine to your organization. After extraction, you run the provided configuration script to point the agent at the correct pool and authenticate using the PAT.
- ✗
An Azure Active Directory account for the agent
Why it's wrong here
An Azure Active Directory account is not involved in agent registration because agents do not authenticate as user identities. Instead, a personal access token provides the required scoped permissions, and Azure AD is only used for human users accessing the Azure DevOps web portal.
Visual reference
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to DevOps and Azure DevOps
Key term
Azure Pipelines
Azure Pipelines is a cloud-based CI/CD service from Microsoft that automatically builds, tests, and deploys code to any platform or cloud.
Key term
DevOps
DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) to shorten the development lifecycle and deliver high-quality software continuously.
About these practice questions
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-400 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft 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 AZ-400 exam.