The Certified DevOps Practitioner (CDP) exam from the Global Skill Development Council suits IT staff who want a recognised DevOps credential. This page sets out the exam format, fee, passing score and retake rules. It then links to free practice sets by topic, shows worked questions with full explanations, and gives a study plan to use alongside the official material.
The CDP has 40 questions, takes about 1.5 hours and costs $250[1] (Global Skill Development Council, verified Oct 27, 2026).
Numbers in brackets link to the official sources listed under Sources & last verified. Dates that have passed are removed automatically.
| Item | Detail | Source · Verified |
|---|---|---|
| Number of questions | 40 multiple-choice questions[1] | Global Skill Development Council · Oct 27, 2026 |
| Time limit | 90 minutes[1] | Global Skill Development Council · Oct 27, 2026 |
| Passing score | 65%[1] | Global Skill Development Council · Oct 27, 2026 |
| Exam fee | $250[1] | Global Skill Development Council · Oct 27, 2026 |
| Retake policy | 1 free retake (Single Access); 2 free retakes (Bundle Access)[1] | Global Skill Development Council · Oct 27, 2026 |
| Validity | 5 years[1] | Global Skill Development Council · Oct 27, 2026 |
| Renewal | Retake the exam or submit 35 GSDC CPD hours[1] | Global Skill Development Council · Oct 27, 2026 |
| Delivery | Online web-based exam[2] | Global Skill Development Council · Oct 27, 2026 |
| Eligibility | No mandatory prerequisite; 2 years of IT experience recommended[1] | Global Skill Development Council · Oct 27, 2026 |
| Score release | Results available after review; certificates emailed within 2 business days[2] | Global Skill Development Council · Oct 27, 2026 |
According to Global Skill Development Council, “The passing score for the DevOps Practitioner Certification exam is typically set at 65%.”[1]
The CDP certification is awarded by the Global Skill Development Council (GSDC) and covers the ideas behind DevOps: culture, principles, automation, and how organisations adopt it. It is aimed at people working in or alongside IT delivery who want to show they understand how DevOps practices fit together.
The exam is online and web-based. You need a stable internet connection and a current browser: Chrome, Mozilla, Safari or Edge. It has 40 multiple-choice questions and a time limit of 90 minutes. The passing score is typically set at 65%, so check the official page before you book in case the figure has been updated.
There is no mandatory prerequisite. GSDC recommends 2 years of IT experience, but that is advice rather than a rule. The listed fee for Single Access is $250. Single Access includes 1 free retake, and Bundle Access includes 2 free retakes.
Results are available after your submission is reviewed, and certificates are emailed within 2 business days. The certification is valid for 5 years. To renew, you can retake the exam or submit 35 GSDC CPD hours.
Prices, bundles and policies can change, so confirm everything on the GSDC website before paying. Our practice questions are written by us with AI tools and are not real exam questions.
The content areas below are copied from the official CDP content outline published by Global Skill Development Council. The right-hand column shows which of our practice sets covers it.
| Official content area | Practice on this site |
|---|---|
| Challenges with Current IT Practices[1] | CDP Troubleshooting & Problem Resolution Practise spotting the delays, hand-offs and recurring failures that DevOps is meant to remove, and how problems are traced to their cause. |
| DevOps and Automation[1] | CDP Infrastructure as Code Know what automation covers, from declarative infrastructure definitions to build and test steps, and why repeatable automation beats manual work. |
| DevOps and Other Processes[1] | CDP Release Management & Deployment Pipelines Compare how DevOps relates to release management and pipeline stages, and what each stage is responsible for. |
| DevOps Culture[1] | CDP DevOps Culture & Agile Practices Practise questions on shared ownership, blameless review and how agile habits support delivery teams. |
| DevOps Principles[1] | CDP Collaboration & Communication Be able to explain the core principles in your own words and link each one to a working habit such as feedback and communication between teams. |
| Introduction to DevOps[1] | CDP Documentation & Best Practices Get the basic vocabulary right, including what DevOps is, why it exists, and which good practices are expected from the start. |
| Organizational Considerations for DevOps Adoption[1] | CDP Project Planning & Deployment Practise how planning, team structure and rollout choices affect whether a DevOps change succeeds. |
| Role of DevOps in Digital Transformation[1] | CDP Implementation & Configuration Connect DevOps practices to wider business change and to the configuration and implementation work that supports it. |
Prepare for the CDP - Certified DevOps Practitioner exam with our free practice test modules. Each quiz covers key topics to help you pass on your first try.
These are practice questions written for this site, not questions from the real exam. Each explanation shows why the right answer is right and why the others are wrong.
Question: What is a declarative approach in IaC?
Answer: B. Describing the desired end state of the infrastructure.
Explanation:
The correct answer is B. A declarative approach to Infrastructure as Code describes the end state you want, and the tool works out which actions are needed to reach it from whatever exists now.
Option A describes the opposite style, an imperative one, where you spell out each step in order. Option C is manual configuration, which is the problem IaC is meant to remove because it cannot be repeated reliably. Option D, scripts without version control, loses the history and review that make infrastructure changes safe, and it says nothing about declaring a desired state.
Rule to remember: declarative means what, imperative means how. If a question mentions a desired or target state that the tool reconciles, think declarative.
Question: Which pipeline stage is specifically responsible for publishing built artifacts to a shared repository?
Answer: C. Publish/Package
Explanation:
The correct answer is C. The Publish or Package stage takes what the build produced and uploads it, with a version, to a shared artifact repository so later stages can use the same file.
Build (A) creates the artifact from source but does not itself store it for sharing. Test (B) checks that the build behaves correctly. Deploy (D) takes an existing artifact and releases it to an environment; it consumes the artifact rather than publishing it.
Rule to remember: match each stage to its single job. Build makes, test checks, publish stores, deploy releases. Building once and promoting the same artifact through every environment keeps results consistent and traceable.
Question: Which of these is a best practice when configuring system alerts?
Answer: C. Set actionable, priority-based alerts to avoid alert fatigue.
Explanation:
The correct answer is C. Alerts should be actionable and ranked by priority, so the person who receives one knows it matters and what to do about it. That keeps people responsive and avoids alert fatigue.
Option A, alerting on every log entry, floods the team with noise until real problems are missed. Option B, email only, is a weak choice because urgent issues need a channel that gets attention quickly, and different priorities suit different channels. Option D, ignoring minor issues and alerting only on failures, removes early warnings that could prevent the failure in the first place.
Rule to remember: good alerting is selective, ranked and tied to a response. If an alert would not change what someone does, reconsider it.
Start with the official GSDC outline and the study material that comes with your access option, and read through the content areas once so you know what the exam covers. Do not try to memorise everything on the first pass.
Then take a practice set for each content area, using the table above to pick the right one. After each set, read the explanation for every question, including the ones you got right, and write down the rule behind any miss. Misses usually cluster around a few ideas, such as the difference between declarative and imperative approaches or the job of each pipeline stage.
Go back to the official material only for the areas where you keep losing marks, then retake those sets after a gap. Mix topics in later sessions so you practise switching between culture questions and technical ones, as the real exam will not group them for you.
Before test day, do at least one timed run of the full-length practice test, aiming to finish inside the 90 minutes with time left to review flagged questions. Check your browser and internet connection in advance, since the exam is taken online.
The CDP exam has 40 multiple-choice questions, and the time limit is 90 minutes. It is taken online in a web browser. Check the GSDC certification page before you book, because exam details can change and the official page is the final word.
GSDC states that the passing score for the DevOps Practitioner exam is typically set at 65%. The word typically matters, so confirm the current figure on the official certification page. Our practice sets are written by us and do not predict your exact result on the real exam.
There is no mandatory prerequisite. GSDC recommends 2 years of IT experience, but you can register without it. If you are newer to IT, spend more time on the introductory and principles areas and read the official study material before attempting the full practice test.
GSDC lists the fee for Single Access at $250. Single Access includes 1 free retake, and Bundle Access includes 2 free retakes. Prices and bundles may change, so check the GSDC website at the time you register before you pay.
The certification is valid for 5 years. To renew, you can either retake the certification exam or submit 35 GSDC CPD hours. Certificates are emailed within 2 business days after your submission is reviewed, so renewal planning is easier if you keep records of your CPD activity.
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