Continuous Delivery & GitOps Certifications
Eliminate scripting and manual deployments with Argo CD-as-a-Service and powerful, easy-to-use pipelines. Empower your teams to deliver new features, faster – with AI/ML for automated canary and blue/green deployments, advanced verification, and intelligent rollback
- For Developers
- For Administrators
- For Architects
Prepare for the Exam
Get Certified | Harness Expert
Continuous Delivery & GitOps - Developer
Product version: Harness CD & GitOps Free/Team PlansReview Study Guide
Eliminate scripting and manual deployments with Argo CD-as-a-Service and powerful, easy-to-use pipelines. Empower your teams to deliver new features, faster – with AI/ML for automated canary and blue/green deployments, advanced verification, and intelligent rollback
Exam Details
The Continuous Delivery Developer exam tests your knowledge and skills of the Harness Continuous Delivery module.
Prerequisites
- Basic terminal skills
- Basic understanding of on premise or cloud architecture
Exam Details
Exam Duration: 90 minutes
Question Type: Multiple choice
| Covered Domain | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Application Architectures and Services for Deployment | 25% |
| Swimlanes | 15% |
| Continuous Delivery | 30% |
| Continuous Verification | 8% |
| GitOps | 10% |
| Data Visibility | 8% |
| Security | 7% |
Exam Objectives
List of Objectives
The following is a detailed list of exam objectives:
| # | Objectives |
|---|---|
| 1 | Application Architectures and Services for Deployment |
| 1.1 | Define a deployment and what makes it continuous |
| 1.2 | Explain application architectures |
| 1.3 | Identify artifacts and manifests needed for a deployment |
| 1.4 | Describe Kubernetes manifests (flat file, helm, etc.) |
| 1.5 | Describe the services needed for an application |
| 1.6 | Configure overrides for service variables (secrets, non-secrets) |
| 1.7 | Describe artifact sources |
| 1.8 | Configure artifact sources |
| 1.9 | Configure service tagging |
| 1.10 | Describe manifest overrides |
| 1.11 | Configure manifest overrides |
| 1.12 | Identify basic deployments (add examples for each app architecture type) |
| 1.13 | Identify rolling deployments |
| 1.14 | Identify canary deployments |
| 1.15 | Identify blue/green deployments |
| 2 | Swimlanes |
| 2.1 | For a Kubernetes deployment, specify environments needed for my application or service - types (Prod, Non-prod) |
| 2.2 | For a Kubernetes deployment, configure environments needed for my application or service |
| 2.3 | For a Kubernetes deployment, describe infrastructure definitions for an environment |
| 2.4 | For a Kubernetes deployment, configure infrastructure definitions for an environment |
| 2.5 | For a Kubernetes deployment, configure overrides for an environment |
| 2.6 | Describe tagging, labeling, and identifiers (what is it used for, different types - resource identification, Business Intelligence, infra assignments, examples - Kubernetes, AWS |
| 2.7 | Configure rolling deployments for each application type (monolith, serverless, container-based) |
| 2.8 | Configure canary deployments for each application type (monolith, serverless, container-based) |
| 2.9 | Configure blue/green deployments for each application type (monolith, serverless, container-based) |
| 3 | Continuous Delivery |
| 3.1 | Automate deployments in your environment |
| 3.2 | Identify pre-deployment steps per environment |
| 3.2.1 | Create a git trigger |
| 3.2.2 | Create a webhook |
| 3.2.3 | Create a manual trigger |
| 3.2.4 | Create a CI outcome trigger (artifact) |
| 3.3 | Describe Policy as Code |
| 3.4 | Configure Policy as Code |
| 3.5 | Describe ticketing and documentation |
| 3.6 | Describe the fetching process (artifacts, manifests, environment-specific requirements, configuration management) |
| 3.7 | Configure fetching (artifacts, manifests, environment-specific requirements, config mgmt) |
| 3.8 | Describe an approval process for my deployment |
| 3.9 | Set up an approval process for my deployment |
| 3.10 | Define failure strategies |
| 3.11 | Configure failure strategies |
| 3.12 | Configure Barriers |
| 3.13 | Describe Conditional Execution |
| 3.14 | Configure Conditional Execution |
| 3.15 | Describe Step Library - Shell Script/run step |
| 4 | Continuous Verification |
| 4.1 | Identify deployment verification types |
| 4.2 | Describe verification through deployment logs |
| 4.3 | Identify deployment health checks |
| 4.4 | Monitor server health during a deployment |
| 4.5 | Monitor execution checks during a deployment |
| 5 | GitOps |
| 5.1 | Explain the principles of GitOps |
| 5.2 | Describe common use cases for using GitOps |
| 5.3 | Describe the benefits of using GitOps |
| 5.4 | Install the GitOps agent |
| 5.5 | Connect your Kubernetes cluster and application repository to Harness to start deployments |
| 5.6 | Set up an application in Harness using GitOps |
| 6 | Data Visibility |
| 6.1 | Describe dashboards |
| 6.2 | Configure notifications and alerts |
| 6.3 | Configure tagging and labeling (governance, reporting) |
| 6.4 | Configure tagging and labeling (governance, reporting) |
| 7 | Security |
| 7.1 | Describe two-factor authentication (2FA) |
| 7.2 | Describe RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) - Built-in Roles |
Next Steps
The Continuous Delivery Developer exam can start immediately after registering. Please allow 90 mins for the exam.
- Create an account in Harness University
- Register for an exam
- Take the exam
Prepare for the Exam
Get Certified | Harness Expert
Continuous Delivery & GitOps - Administrator (BETA COMING SOON)
Product version: Harness CD & GitOps Enterprise PlanReview Study Guide
Assesses the fundamental skills to deploy and maintain CD projects and the overall Harness Platform. This exam builds upon the CD Developer Certification.
| Topic | Material |
|---|---|
| 1. Foundations - SDLC, Services, and Application Architectures | |
| Configure Artifacts | Services and environments basics |
| Describe common triggering mechanisms | Triggers |
| Describe available Cloud Provider Agnostic Connectors for Kubernetes Clusters as a managed Service (EKS, GKE, AKS) | Add a Kubernetes cluster connector |
| Access in a Cloud Provider - AWS (Pareto) | AWS connector settings reference |
| Configure Traditional Deployments in VMs and Baremetal (SSH, WinRM) | WinRM deployments |
| Describe Containerized Workloads (Docker, Ks, OCI, etc) | Kubernetes deployments basics |
| Describe Serverless Workloads (Serverless Framework) | Serverless.com Framework |
| Configure and Deploy using the Ks rolling update strategy | Kubernetes Deployment Tutorials |
| Describe canary deployments and how it works | Create a Kubernetes Canary deployment |
| Configure a Service for Harness CD | Services and environments basics |
| Describe the Service Entity main attributes | Key concepts |
| Define Service Variables | Harness Kubernetes services |
| Apply Service Variables in real use cases | Harness Kubernetes services |
| Define Config Files | Use config files in your deployments |
| Configure Artifacts and Artifact Sources | CD artifact sources |
| Describe Sidecar Artifacts and use cases | Add a Kubernetes sidecar container |
| Define the Harness Environment Entity and its metadata | Services and environments basics |
| Describe Env metadata: Environment Type and Tags | Tag References |
| Overrides - Describe Priority Order | Service overrides |
| Environment Overrides - Describe Manifests override | Add and override values YAML files |
| Environment Overrides - Configure Manifests override (Values YAML is a great use case) | Add and override values YAML files |
| Environment Overrides - Describe Config Files override | Override priority |
| Environment's Service Overrides - Describe how to override by a particular Env + Service | Override priority |
| Environment's Service Overrides - Configure an override per service + env | Override priority |
| Configure an Environment's Infra Definition (Could be a Ks one) | Kubernetes infrastructure |
| Describe InfraDef Deployment Types | Kubernetes infrastructure |
| Kubernetes InfraDef - Describe Direct Connection X Cloud Provider | Kubernetes infrastructure |
| Kubernetes InfraDef - Cluster Details - Describe Connector + Namespace | Kubernetes infrastructure |
| Configure Allow simultaneous deployments on the same infrastructure | Pipeline resource constraints |
| SSH and WinRM - Describe how Credentials works for them | Add SSH keysAdd WinRM Connection Credentials |
| Describe Physical Data Center | Add a Physical Datacenter |
| 2. Harness Architecture and Components | |
| Describe the Harness Manager | Harness Platform architecture |
| Describe the Harness Delegate | Harness Delegate Overview |
| How to check Delegate Task Selection during a Deployment | Delegate Log File |
| How to read Delegate Logs | Delegate Log File |
| 3. Account Resources for Harness CD | |
| Configure a Kubernetes Cloud Provider Connector | Add a Kubernetes cluster connector |
| Configure Connectors - Ticket Systems, Artifact Repo, Code Repo, etc | Connectors Overview |
| Configure Secret Managers Connectors | Harness secrets management overview |
| Perform a simple Delegate Installation | Delegate overview |
| Configure Delegate Tags | Use delegate selectors |
| Describe Delegate Selectors in Steps, Stages, or Pipelines | Use delegate selectors |
| Configure Delegate Selectors in Steps, Stages, or Pipelines | Use delegate selectors |
| Install software on the delegate with initialization scripts (INIT_SCRIPT) | Install a delegate with third-party tool custom binaries |
| Describe Secrets (Acc Resources) Files and Text | Install a delegate with third-party tool custom binaries |
| Describe Secrets (Acc Resources) SSH and WinRM Credentials | WinRM deployments |
| Describe the relationship between Secrets and Secrets Managers (Connector) | Secrets and log sanitization |
| Describe Harness File Store | Add inline service files using file store |
| Configure Harness File Store and use its files in a Deployment | Add inline service files using file store |
| 4. Variables, Expressions, and Programmatic Approaches to Harness CD | |
| Describe Harness Built-in and Custom Harness Variables | You can use all Java string methods |
| Give examples of Java string methods in Harness Variables (JEXL) | You can use all Java string methods |
| How to get Secrets programmatically at runtime (using our expression variable engine) | Add and reference text secrets |
Apply in use case - Service Variables (<+serviceVariables[variable name]>) | Add and reference text secrets |
| 5. Governance, Authentication, and Authorization: Login, RBAC, Access Control | |
| Authentication: Describe security actions available | Authentication overview |
| Authentication: Describe OAuth and SAML integrations | Single Sign-On (SSO) with SAML |
| SSO: Describe SAML + SCIM (automatic provisioning) | Provision users and groups using Azure AD (SCIM) |
| Describe RBAC in User Groups X Roles (Role Bindings) | Role-based access control overview |
| Describe RBAC and Role Bindings for Service Account | Harness RBAC components |
| Describe Resource Groups | Harness RBAC components |
| Configure Resource Groups | Harness RBAC components |
| Describe Roles | Harness RBAC components |
| Configure Roles | Harness RBAC components |
| Configure Policy as Code - Apply in any common use case (OPA, Rego) | Harness Policy As Code overview |
| Account Audit Trail - Describe Use Cases | View audit trail |
| Create a Freeze Window | Freeze deployments |
| 6. Data Visualization, Dashboards, and Reporting | |
| Describe tagging, labeling, and identifiers | Tags Reference |
| Configure tagging, labeling, and identifiers | Tags Reference |
| Configure a Custom Dashboard (Enterprise) | Dashboards Overview |
| Deployments - Describe the Overview Dashboard | View deployments dashboard |
| Deployments - Describe the Services Dashboard | Monitor deployments and services in CD dashboards |
| 7. Swimlanes | |
| Configure a Rolling Deployment | Create a Kubernetes Rolling deployment |
| Configure a Blue/Green Deployment | Create a Kubernetes Blue Green deployment |
| Configure a Canary Deployment | Create a Kubernetes Canary deployment |
| Skip and then Deploy manifests separately using Apply step | Deploy manifests separately using Apply step |
| Deploy to SSH/WinRM/Traditional | Secure Shell (SSH) deployments |
| 8. Continuous Delivery | |
| Describe Notification Rules (Pipeline Events + Notification Method) | Add a pipeline notification strategy |
| Describe Barriers | Synchronize parallel stages and step groups using Barriers |
| Configure Barriers | Synchronize parallel stages and step groups using Barriers |
| Define failure strategies | Step and stage failure strategy references |
| Configure failure strategies | Step and stage failure strategy references |
| Describe Failure Strategies Actions | Step and stage failure strategy references |
| Configure Conditional Execution - For Stage and for Step | Stage and step conditional execution settings |
| Configure Looping Strategy - Repeat, Matrix, Parallelism | Best practices for looping strategies |
| Delegate Selectors - For Pipeline, Stage, Step | Use delegate selectors |
| Advanced Options - Timeout Settings | Define a failure strategy on stages and steps |
| Advanced Options - Describe Stage Execution Settings (Select stages to run) | Stage and step conditional execution settings |
| Configure Approval Stages and Steps (native and tool-based) | Using manual Harness approval stages |
| Configure a Git-based Trigger (aka webhook) | Triggering Pipelines |
| Configure a Custom Webhook | Trigger deployments using custom triggers |
| Configure a CI outcome trigger (artifact) | Trigger on a New Artifact |
| Configure a Cron Trigger | Schedule Pipelines using Triggers |
| Manually Execute a Pipeline | Input Sets |
| Describe InputSets | Input Sets |
| Configure InputSets | Input Sets |
| Describe Execution History | View and Compare Pipeline Executions |
| Describe the Step Library | Create a step template |
| Describe a step using a template | Templates overview |
| Describe the Step Library - Shell Script/run step | Shell Script step reference |
| Describe the Step Library - Flow Control with barriers | Synchronize parallel stages and step groups using Barriers |
| Describe the Step Library - Ks Apply | Kubernetes Apply step |
| Configure ticketing ITSM | Ticketing Systems |
| Use the Step Library - Add Governance, Approvals, ITSM, etc | Ticketing Systems |
| 9. Continuous Verification in Harness CD | |
| Identify deployment verification types | Harness Continuous Verification (CV) overview |
| Explain CV Health Sources - The actual integration with APM and Monitoring Tools (logs, metrics) | Harness Continuous Verification (CV) overview |
| Use the CV Step during a Deployment - Canary is the best example | Harness Continuous Verification (CV) overview |
| Describe and Apply CV critical attributes - Sensitivity and Duration | Harness Continuous Verification (CV) overview |
| Configure a quick Health Check using the HTTP Step | Using HTTP requests in CD pipelines |
| 10. Alerting, SMTP Configuration, Notifications | |
| Configure User Group Notification - Slack, Email, etc | https://developer.harness.io/docs/platform/notifications/send-notifications-using-slack/ |
| Notifications Based on Response to Pipeline and stage events | Send notifications using Slack |
| Dashboards - Configure Report Schedule Delivery | Schedule and share dashboards |
| Dashboards - Configure Alert based in conditions | Create conditional alerts |
| 11. GitOps | |
| Explain the principles of GitOps using a comprehension/use case | Harness GitOps basics |
| Describe common use cases for using GitOps | Harness GitOps basics |
| Describe the benefits of using GitOps | Harness GitOps basics |
| Describe Harness' GitOps architecture and its components | Harness GitOps basics |
| Install the GitOps agent | https://developer.harness.io/docs/continuous-delivery/cd-gitops/harness-cd-git-ops-quickstart |
| Connect your Kubernetes cluster and application repository to Harness to start deployments | Harness CD GitOps tutorial |
| Analyze your application deployment requirements to determine whether to use a GitOps or a pipeline-based approach | Harness GitOps Summary |
| Set up an application in Harness using GitOps | Harness CD GitOps tutorial |
| 12. Templates | |
| Describe Harness Templates - Pipeline, Stage, Step | Templates overview |
| Create a Template - Pipeline, or Stage | Templates overview |
| Describe or Use - Template Versioning and Import from Git | Templates overview |
| 13. Git Experience | |
| Git Experience - Describe supported Harness Entities | Supported Harness entities |
| Git Experience - Configure Git Experience for a Pipeline | What is Harness Git experience? |
Exam Details
(BETA Coming Soon) The Continuous Delivery Administrator exam tests your knowledge and skills of the Harness Continuous Delivery module.
Prerequisites
- Basic terminal skills
- Intermediate understanding of on-premise or cloud architecture
- This exam builds upon the CD Developer Exam
Exam Details
| Exam Type | Duration |
|---|---|
| Knowledge Exam | 90 minutes |
| Hands On Exam | 120 minutes |
| Covered Domain | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Foundations - SDLC, Services, and Application Architectures | 25% |
| Harness Architecture and Components | 15% |
| Continuous Delivery | 30% |
| Continuous Verification | 8% |
| GitOps | 10% |
| Data Visibility | 8% |
| Security | 7% |
Exam Objectives
List of Objectives
The following is a detailed list of exam objectives:
| # | Objectives |
|---|---|
| 1 | Foundations - SDLC, Services, and Application Architectures |
| 1.1 | CD Foundations |
| 1.2 | Describe common platforms and cloud providers |
| 1.3 | Describe different architectures |
| 1.4 | Deployment Strategies and Harness Approaches |
| 1.5 | The Service Entity - Foundations |
| 1.6 | The Environment Entity - Foundations |
| 1.7 | The Environment Entity - Infrastructure Definitions |
| 2 | Harness Architecture and Components |
| 2.1 | Harness Platform architecture |
| 2.2 | Describe the Harness Manager |
| 2.3 | Describe the Harness Delegate |
| 2.4 | How to check Delegate Task Selection during a Deployment |
| 2.5 | How to read Delegate Logs |
| 3 | Account Resources for Harness CD |
| 3.1 | Connectors for Harness CD |
| 3.2 | Delegate Management for Harness CD |
| 3.3 | Secrets |
| 3.4 | Harness FileStore |
| 4 | Variables, Expressions, and Programmatic Approaches to Harness CD |
| 4.1 | Describe Harness Built-in and Custom Harness Variables |
| 4.2 | Give examples of Java string methods in Harness Variables (JEXL) |
| 4.3 | How to get Secrets programmatically at runtime |
| 4.4 | Apply in use case - Service Variables (<+serviceVariables.[variable name]>) |
| 5 | Governance, Authentication and Authorization: Login, RBAC, Access Control |
| 5.1 | Login and SSO |
| 5.2 | RBAC and Access Control |
| 5.3 | Governance |
| 6 | Data Visualization, Dashboards, and Reporting |
| 6.1 | Adding Metadata to Harness Resources and Entities |
| 6.2 | Harness Dashboards and Looker |
| 7 | Swimlanes |
| 7.1 | Kubernetes Deployment + Common Deployment Strategies |
| 7.2 | Basic Deployment Capacity by Provider |
| 8 | Continuous Delivery |
| 8.1 | Pipeline Flow Control Mechanisms and important child Entities |
| 8.2 | Pipeline Triggers, Executions History, and Inputs |
| 8.3 | Steps in a Stage and Step Library for Harness CD |
| 9 | Continuous Verification in Harness CD |
| 9.1 | Identify deployment verification types |
| 9.2 | Explain CV Health Sources |
| 9.3 | Use the CV Step during a Deployment |
| 9.4 | Describe and Apply CV critical attributes - Sensitivity and Duration |
| 9.5 | Configure a quick Health Check using the HTTP Step |
| 10 | Alerting, SMTP Configuration, Notifications |
| 10.1 | Configure User Group Notification - Slack, Email, etc. |
| 10.2 | Notify based in response to Pipeline and stage events |
| 10.3 | Dashboards - Configure Report Schedule Delivery |
| 10.4 | Dashboards - Configure Alert based in conditions |
| 11 | GitOps |
| 11.1 | Explain the principles of GitOps using a comprehension/use case |
| 11.2 | Describe common use cases for using GitOps |
| 11.3 | Describe the benefits of using GitOps |
| 11.4 | Describe Harness' GitOps architecture and its components |
| 11.5 | Install the GitOps agent |
| 11.6 | Connect your Kubernetes cluster and application repository to Harness to start deployments |
| 11.7 | Analyze your application deployment requirements to determine whether to use a GitOps or a pipeline-based approach |
| 11.8 | Set up an application in Harness using GitOps |
| 11.9 | Analyze drift between the application state in Git and the cluster |
| 12 | Templates |
| 12.1 | Describe Harness Templates - Pipeline, Stage, Step |
| 12.2 | Create a Template - Pipeline, or Stage |
| 12.3 | Describe or Use - Template Versioning and Import from Git |
| 13 | Git Experiences |
| 13.1 | Git Experience - Describe supported Harness Entities |
| 13.2 | Git Experience - Configure Git Experience for a Pipeline |
Next Steps
The Continuous Delivery Administrator exam can start immediately after registering. Please allow 90 mins for the knowledge exam and approximately 2 hours for the hands on exam.
- Create an account in Harness University
- Register for an exams
- Review the instructions for the Hands On Exam
- Take the exams
- There will be a knowledge and hands on portion.
Prepare for the Exam
Get Certified | Harness Expert
Continuous Delivery & GitOps - Architect (BETA COMING SOON)
Product version: Harness CD & GitOps Enterprise PlanComing Soon...
Assess key technical job functions and advanced skills in design, implementation and management of CD.