AZ-400 Pre-deployment approval Practice Question
You are setting up a release pipeline for a web application. The pipeline must deploy to three environments: Dev, Test, and Prod. The deployment to Prod must be triggered only after a successful deployment to Test and after a manual approval. How should you configure the pipeline?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse manual intervention tasks with approval gates. Pre-deployment approvals are the proper Azure DevOps feature for manual sign-off on a stage.
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
✓
Add a pre-deployment approval gate on the Prod environment.
Pre-deployment approval gates on the Prod environment block the release until manual approval is granted, and a stage condition ensures it runs only after successful Test deployment. Option A is wrong because manual intervention tasks are not designed for approvals and do not integrate with pipeline stages as seamlessly. Option B is wrong because conditions can't enforce manual approval; they only evaluate at runtime. Option C is wrong because scheduling doesn't provide manual approval; triggers can be manual but not combined with stage success conditions effectively.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Add a manual intervention task before the Prod deployment in the pipeline.
Why it's wrong here
A manual intervention task runs inside a stage as part of an agent job, so the stage has already been initiated and the deployment pipeline is active. It pauses execution for a human check, but it does not block the start of the stage the way an environment-level pre-deployment approval does, so it fails to enforce a pre-production sign-off before the Prod stage begins.
- ✗
Use a condition on the Prod stage to require success from Test and manual intervention variable.
Why it's wrong here
Stage conditions are boolean expressions evaluated before the stage runs, but they can only reference available variables, parameters, and previous stage outcomes. There is no mechanism to incorporate a 'manual intervention variable' in a condition, and conditions alone cannot enforce a human approval workflow; they merely skip or run the stage based on the expression, not on explicit sign-off.
- ✗
Schedule the Prod deployment to run after Test, and require manual trigger.
Why it's wrong here
Scheduled triggers automatically start the pipeline or stage at a specified time, and requiring a manual trigger is a separate mechanism where a person explicitly queues the release. Neither approach introduces a formal approval checkpoint tied to the Prod environment; scheduled deployments run automatically without human sign-off, and a manual trigger simply starts the process, it does not wait for an approval decision.
- ✓
Add a pre-deployment approval gate on the Prod environment.
Why this is correct
A pre-deployment approval gate is configured directly on the Prod environment in Azure Pipelines, and it forces the pipeline to pause before the deployment job to that environment begins. Designated approvers must explicitly approve the release, which provides a formal, auditable sign-off that blocks the Prod stage from starting until the required approval is granted.
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Designing a Build Pipeline
Key term
Pipeline
A pipeline is an automated series of steps that takes code from development to production, ensuring quality and speed.
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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