This AZ-400 practice question tests your understanding of configure processes and communications. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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.
Your team uses GitHub Actions for CI/CD. You need to enforce that all workflows use approved actions from a private marketplace. Which GitHub feature should you configure?
Use environment secrets to store allowed action names.
Why wrong: Secrets do not restrict action usage.
Require self-hosted runners.
Why wrong: Self-hosted runners don't restrict action selection.
Set the Actions permissions to 'Allow only specified actions'.
This policy restricts workflows to an approved list.
Configure OpenID Connect (OIDC) for Actions.
Why wrong: OIDC is for cloud provider access.
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
Set the Actions permissions to 'Allow only specified actions'.
Option C is correct because the 'Allow only specified actions' setting in GitHub Actions permissions allows you to restrict workflow execution to a curated list of actions from a private marketplace or specific verified publishers. This enforces governance by preventing the use of unapproved actions, which is critical for compliance and security in enterprise CI/CD pipelines.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
Use environment secrets to store allowed action names.
Why it's wrong here
Secrets do not restrict action usage.
Require self-hosted runners.
Why it's wrong here
Self-hosted runners don't restrict action selection.
Set the Actions permissions to 'Allow only specified actions'.
Why this is correct
This policy restricts workflows to an approved list.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Configure OpenID Connect (OIDC) for Actions.
Why it's wrong here
OIDC is for cloud provider access.
Common exam traps
The trap here is that candidates often confuse runner-level controls (self-hosted runners) with action-level governance, mistakenly thinking that restricting where code runs also restricts what actions can be used.
Detailed technical explanation
Under the hood, the 'Allow only specified actions' setting is enforced by GitHub's internal action resolution engine, which checks each action reference against the configured allowlist before the runner downloads the action. This allowlist can include actions from specific publishers, individual repositories, or entire GitHub Apps, and is evaluated during the workflow preprocessing phase. A real-world scenario is a financial institution that must restrict all pipelines to use only internally audited actions from a private GitHub organization to meet SOC 2 compliance.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
What to study next
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FAQ
Configure processes and communications — This question tests Configure processes and communications — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
The correct answer is: Set the Actions permissions to 'Allow only specified actions'. — Option C is correct because the 'Allow only specified actions' setting in GitHub Actions permissions allows you to restrict workflow execution to a curated list of actions from a private marketplace or specific verified publishers. This enforces governance by preventing the use of unapproved actions, which is critical for compliance and security in enterprise CI/CD pipelines.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jun 25, 2026
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