AZ-400 Practice Question: Design and implement build and release pipelines
You have a pipeline that uses Azure Repos Git. You need to enforce that all commits to the main branch are associated with a work item. Which branch policy should you enable?
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
✓
Require linked work items
Require linked work items. This branch policy enforces that pull requests or commits to the main branch have at least one associated work item, ensuring traceability. Option B, Limit merge types, restricts which merge strategies can be used (e.g., squash, rebase), but does not enforce work item linking. Option C, Require a minimum number of reviewers, ensures code review but not work item association. Option D, Check for comment resolution, requires that all comments on pull requests are resolved before merging, which is unrelated to work items.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Require linked work items
Why this is correct
This branch policy enforces that every pull request must have at least one linked work item before it can be completed. By blocking completion without a work item link, it provides full traceability from code changes back to the original requirement or task, which is critical for audit and compliance.
- ✗
Limit merge types
Why it's wrong here
This policy restricts the merge strategies allowed for completing a pull request, such as 'squash', 'merge', or 'rebase'. It controls how commits are integrated into the target branch and shapes the commit history, but it does not require any work item association, so it does not meet the traceability need.
- ✗
Require a minimum number of reviewers
Why it's wrong here
This policy mandates that a specified minimum number of reviewers must approve the pull request before it can be merged. While it ensures human oversight and improves code quality, it has no mechanism to verify whether a work item is linked, making it irrelevant to the stated requirement.
- ✗
Check for comment resolution
Why it's wrong here
This policy prevents a pull request from being completed if any comment threads remain unresolved. It ensures that all discussions inside the pull request are fully addressed and closed, but it focuses solely on conversation hygiene and does not enforce linking changes to work items.
Visual reference
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Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to DevOps and Azure DevOps
Key term
Check
A Check in Azure DevOps is a gating mechanism that evaluates predefined conditions before allowing a pipeline deployment to proceed to a specific environment.
Key term
Azure Repos
Azure Repos is a set of version control tools that allow teams to manage their source code, track changes, and collaborate on software projects using Git or Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) within the Microsoft Azure ecosystem.
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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.