AZ-400 Practice Question: Design and implement a source control strategy
This AZ-400 practice question tests your understanding of design and implement a source control strategy. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. 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.
You are designing a source control strategy for a global team of 200 developers working on a single large .NET solution. The solution takes 45 minutes to build. You need to reduce build times and enable independent versioning of components. What should you do?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Split the solution into multiple repositories, each with its own CI/CD pipeline
Splitting the solution into multiple repositories (a multi-repo strategy) allows independent teams to version and build their components separately, reducing the monolithic 45-minute build to smaller, parallel CI/CD pipelines. This approach also enables independent versioning of components, which is impossible in a monorepo without complex tooling. Each repository can have its own pipeline that triggers only on changes to that component, drastically cutting build times.
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.
✗
Migrate from Git to Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) for better performance
Why it's wrong here
TFVC doesn't address build time and is not recommended for large distributed teams.
✗
Stay in a monorepo and use one pipeline with path filters to build only changed components
Why it's wrong here
Path filters can skip some tasks, but the pipeline still runs the full build for any change.
✓
Split the solution into multiple repositories, each with its own CI/CD pipeline
Why this is correct
Multiple repositories with independent builds reduce build times and enable independent versioning.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Keep the monorepo and disable continuous integration builds to reduce load
Why it's wrong here
Disabling CI doesn't improve build times; developers still wait for manual builds.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often think path filters in a monorepo (Option B) reduce build time, but they only control pipeline triggers—the actual build still compiles the entire solution, so the 45-minute build remains unchanged.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
In a multi-repo strategy, each repository typically contains a single component (e.g., a microservice or library) with its own CI/CD pipeline, allowing builds to run in parallel and only when that component changes. Under the hood, Git's distributed nature supports this by enabling each repo to have its own commit history, tags, and versioning, while build agents can be scaled independently per pipeline. Real-world scenarios like Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions use repository-level triggers (e.g., `paths:` in YAML) to further optimize, but the key is that each pipeline only builds its own component, not the entire solution.
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.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this AZ-400 question in full detail.
Design and implement a source control strategy — This question tests Design and implement a source control strategy — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Split the solution into multiple repositories, each with its own CI/CD pipeline — Splitting the solution into multiple repositories (a multi-repo strategy) allows independent teams to version and build their components separately, reducing the monolithic 45-minute build to smaller, parallel CI/CD pipelines. This approach also enables independent versioning of components, which is impossible in a monorepo without complex tooling. Each repository can have its own pipeline that triggers only on changes to that component, drastically cutting build times.
What should I do if I get this AZ-400 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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Question Discussion
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