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Design and implement a source control strategy →hardMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

AZ-400 Practice Question: Design and implement a source control strategy

Your team uses GitHub and wants to automatically label pull requests based on the content of the changes (e.g., 'frontend' for changes in /frontend folder, 'backend' for /backend). Which approach should you use?

⚠ Common exam trap

Candidates often confuse CODEOWNERS (which assigns reviewers) with label automation, leading candidates to pick option D despite it having no labeling functionality.

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

✓

Create a GitHub Actions workflow that runs on pull_request events and uses an action like 'actions/labeler' to add labels based on path patterns.

GitHub Actions provides a native, event-driven way to automate labeling based on pull request changes. The 'actions/labeler' action specifically inspects file paths in the diff and applies labels defined in a configuration file, making it the simplest and most maintainable solution for path-based labeling.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

  • ✗

    Use branch protection rules to require specific labels based on branch name patterns.

    Why it's wrong here

    Branch protection rules enforce quality gates on pull requests—such as required status checks, required reviewers, and commit signing—but they do not contain any mechanism for automatically adding labels. Labels are metadata that must be set by an API call, a webhook handler, or a GitHub Action, so branch protection rules alone cannot auto-label a PR.

  • ✗

    Set up a webhook that triggers an Azure Function to parse the pull request diff and add labels.

    Why it's wrong here

    A webhook-triggered Azure Function can parse a pull request diff and add labels, but this approach fails because GitHub already provides a native mechanism—GitHub Actions with a `paths` filter—that directly labels PRs based on changed folders without requiring custom infrastructure. It is tempting because webhooks are a generic integration pattern for reacting to GitHub events, and an Azure Function would be correct if the labelling logic required complex external processing (e.g., calling a third-party API) that GitHub Actions cannot perform natively.

  • ✓

    Create a GitHub Actions workflow that runs on pull_request events and uses an action like 'actions/labeler' to add labels based on path patterns.

    Why this is correct

    The actions/labeler GitHub Action runs on the pull_request event and uses a declarative configuration file (typically .github/labeler.yml) to map file path patterns to labels. When a PR modifies files matching a pattern, the action automatically adds the corresponding label, making this the purpose-built, native GitHub solution for path-based auto-labeling.

  • ✗

    Use a CODEOWNERS file to assign labels based on file paths.

    Why it's wrong here

    A CODEOWNERS file designates specific users or teams as owners of files/directories, and GitHub automatically requests their review when a PR touches those paths. It has no functionality to add or manage labels—labels must be applied via the GitHub API, GitHub Actions, or another automation layer—so using CODEOWNERS for labeling is fundamentally incorrect.

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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.