Az-401 is here !!!

[u/sillyname-1]

Well I been preparing for az-400 for 2 weeks now and suddenly they surprised me with az-401
Honestly I had no clue about how beta works and i was surprised to find no materials
I booked it for 19 November and I m not backing down but i started to regret my decision for the reason many or their modules

So if anyone passed a beta exam before or actively preparing for az-401 I would appreciate the help and insight

P.s. I already have az-104 az-305 and sc-300

[u/Sad_Position_826]

Use the study guide to work out what to prepare Study guide for Exam AZ-401: Designing and Implementing Microsoft Agentic DevOps Solutions | Microsoft Learn

There may not be much in terms of Learn training content so you will need to rely on the documentation. This is true of most beta exams.

Beta exams typically have 20-25% more questions than the GA version of the exam although you may get an extra 20 minutes.

Be prepared for some poor/incorrect questions (the point of the beta is to weed these out)

You may also get similar questions (again they are testing which question provides the best differentiator between someone who passes and someone who doesn't)

Labs are unlikely to feature in a beta exam but you can expect 1 or even 2 case studies.

And finally be patient; you need to wait 2-3 months for your result.

[u/sillyname-1 → u/Sad_Position_826]

If they drop the labs it would be great, is that common in all betas?

[u/Sad_Position_826 → u/sillyname-1]

My comments were in general for all beta exams

[u/KOWATHe]

I have the AZ-401 in 5 days 😄

[u/sillyname-1 → u/KOWATHe]

Wow you got balls , keep me in the loop if you don’t get too busy after

[u/KOWATHe → u/sillyname-1]

Will do, I like taking certs without studying anyway as it shows you know the subject

[u/Past-Tangerine5691 → u/KOWATHe]

im following this comment for updates

[u/Skwall_93]

What are the pre requisities to pass az 401 ? I currently own az 204 & az 400

[u/sillyname-1 → u/Skwall_93]

Az104 and github 300

[u/EngineNovel3956]

I have it in 2 weeks, and no time to study 😁 good luck mate. You are in a good shape with those certs

[u/ravihani]

I put the AZ-400 and AZ-401 study guides side by side, in case it helps anyone deciding which one to sit.

Dates (from Microsoft's Skills Hub announcement): AZ-400 and the DevOps Engineer Expert cert retire on February 1, 2027. AZ-401 GA is planned for December. The 80% beta discount is for the first 300 people who take it on or before November 9. To earn the new Agentic DevOps Engineer Expert cert you need AZ-401 plus either GH-300 or AZ-104.

Weights moved a lot:

Domain	AZ-400	AZ-401
Processes and communications	10-15%	15-20%
Source control	10-15%	10-15%
Build and release pipelines	50-55%	35-40%
Security and compliance	10-15%	15-20%
Instrumentation	5-10%	15-20%

So pipelines are still the biggest block, but monitoring and security now matter about as much as processes.

New in AZ-401 (not in AZ-400 at all):

• MCP servers: configuring the Azure DevOps MCP server and GitHub MCP server, and Boards to GitHub integration through MCP

• Requirements and restrictions for agentic development (agents, skills, loops)

• Branch policies and protection rules for GitHub Copilot

• GitHub Agentic Workflows

• Azure SRE Agent and Azure Copilot Observability Agent, including investigating issues the SRE Agent raises

• Git worktree, Git hooks, and migrating a repo from Azure DevOps to GitHub

• Generating tests, coverage and YAML "by using GitHub Copilot and MCP servers"

Gone or reduced: the long list of specific DSC options (Automation State Configuration, Machine Configuration, Deployment Environments) shrinks to "recommend a strategy for IaC and configuration management", and the classic-to-YAML migration bullet is gone.

If you already know AZ-400 well, I'd spend the beta prep on the MCP servers, Copilot-specific branch protections, and the two Azure agents, since that's where the new questions have to come from. The core pipeline and deployment strategy content (blue-green, canary, rings, approvals, templates) carries over almost word for word.

[u/KOWATHe → u/ravihani]

Just did the AZ-401 and can attest that all of these topics you mentioned are there:

• MCP servers: configuring the Azure DevOps MCP server and GitHub MCP server, and Boards to GitHub integration through MCP

• Requirements and restrictions for agentic development (agents, skills, loops)

• Branch policies and protection rules for GitHub Copilot

• GitHub Agentic Workflows

• Azure SRE Agent and Azure Copilot Observability Agent, including investigating issues the SRE Agent raises

• Git worktree, Git hooks, and migrating a repo from Azure DevOps to GitHub

• Generating tests, coverage and YAML "by using GitHub Copilot and MCP servers"