AZ-400 Practice Question: Design and implement build and release pipelines
You are configuring a release pipeline in Azure DevOps to deploy to multiple environments (dev, test, prod). You need to ensure that the production deployment requires manual approval from the release manager. What should you configure?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse a manual intervention task (which pauses within a stage) with a pre-deployment approval (which gates the start of a stage), leading candidates to incorrectly select the task-based option instead of the stage-level approval.
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 pre-deployment approvals on the production stage.
Pre-deployment approvals on the production stage enforce manual sign-off before any deployment to that environment begins. This ensures the release manager must explicitly approve the deployment, meeting the requirement for manual approval on production. Azure DevOps stages support pre-deployment and post-deployment approval gates, with pre-deployment being the correct choice for controlling when a stage starts.
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 pre-deployment approvals on the production stage.
Why this is correct
Pre-deployment approvals on the production stage create a formal gate before the stage begins, requiring designated approvers to explicitly authorize the release. This is the correct mechanism because it applies to the entire stage, ensuring no production deployment occurs without human sign-off.
- ✗
Add a manual intervention task before the production deployment.
Why it's wrong here
A manual intervention task runs as a task within a stage, pausing the deployment only after that stage has already started and earlier tasks have executed. It cannot gate the start of the production stage itself, because the stage is already running by the time the task is reached.
- ✗
Set post-deployment approvals on the test stage.
Why it's wrong here
Post-deployment approvals on the test stage require approval only after the test stage has completed, which is too late because the release pipeline will already proceed to the production stage. The approval must be placed on the production stage as a pre-deployment gate to prevent the production deployment from starting.
- ✗
Use a condition on the production stage to check a variable.
Why it's wrong here
A condition on the production stage can only evaluate variables or expressions to control whether the stage runs, but it cannot prompt a human for manual approval. Since the requirement is a human decision to approve, a variable check is insufficient and does not provide the necessary sign-off mechanism.
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Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to DevOps and Azure DevOps
Key term
Azure DevOps
Azure DevOps is a Microsoft service that provides development tools for planning, building, testing, and deploying software applications using automated pipelines and collaboration features.
Key term
Release pipeline
A Release pipeline is an automated sequence of steps that takes software from code commit to production deployment, ensuring quality and consistency.
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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.