The GitHub Actions certification exam is a fantastic way to validate your knowledge of GitHub Actions and to gain a deeper understanding of the different concepts around automation on GitHub.
Because the certification is relatively new, I couldn’t find much information or resources about it while preparing for the exam. Therefore, I decided to write this post to share my experience and provide some resources and tips that I found helpful while studying for the exam.
What is the exam about?
The GitHub Actions certification exam tests your knowledge of GitHub Actions, specifically your ability to write and consume workflows, create custom actions, and manage GitHub Actions for the enterprise.
The exam covers the following topics:
- Author and maintain workflows (40% - around 29 questions)
- Consume workflows (20% - around 15 questions)
- Author and maintain actions (25% - around 18 questions)
- Manage GitHub Actions for the enterprise (15% - around 11 questions)
The official exam guide provides a more detailed breakdown of the topics covered in the exam. You can find the exam guide linked on the exam page.
The description of the exam states:
Candidates for this exam should have subject matter expertise with continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) workflows as well as experience working with GitHub Actions in the enterprise.
As a general rule, before taking the exam you should be familiar with concepts such as:
- GitHub Actions workflow structure and syntax (jobs, steps, actions, triggers, events, usage of environment variables and secrets, most common environment variables available, etc.).
- Workflow commands and expressions.
- Using actions in workflows (especially how to use the official actions offered by GitHub).
- The various types of actions (composite, Docker, JavaScript) and the differences between them.
- Creating and publishing custom actions, and the main files and syntax required to create an action.
- GitHub Actions settings and policies available in GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub Enterprise Cloud.
- Using and managing runners, and the differences between GitHub-hosted and self-hosted runners.
Hands-on experience is not required, but it is highly recommended.
Exam details
Most of the available information about the exam can be found on the GitHub Certification Program FAQs page and the exam page. Check these pages for the most up-to-date information about the exam.
Here is a summary:
- The exam is 120 minutes long.
- The exam consists of around 73 multiple-choice questions, of which only 60 are scored and contribute to your final score.
- The exam can be taken online (proctored, available through PSI) or in person (available at select testing centers).
- An official passing score is not provided.
- You can reschedule or cancel your exam up to 48 hours before your scheduled exam time.
- If you fail the exam, you must wait 24 hours before attempting the first retake. After that, you must wait 14 days between each consecutive retake. There is a limit of 5 total attempts.
Passing the exam will grant you the GitHub Actions certification, together with a badge and a certificate from Credly. The certification is valid for 3 years, after which you will need to renew it.
A score report will be available immediately after completing the exam. It includes your overall score expressed in percentage and a breakdown of your score by topic, to help you identify the areas where you need to improve.
To learn more about the requirements for taking the exam online and the check-in process, check out the PSI website.
Study Resources
Unfortunately, there aren’t many resources available online that are specifically designed to help you prepare for the GitHub Actions certification exam.
The official study material can be found on the exam page and on the study guide that is linked there. The study guide provides a detailed breakdown of the topics covered in the exam, and it can be a good starting point for your study plan.
These are some of the resources that I found helpful while preparing for the exam:
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GitHub Actions Learning Path on Microsoft Learn: this learning path includes modules that cover all the topics included in the exam. What I like about these modules is that, in addition to the theoretical knowledge, they also include hands-on exercises that you can complete using your own GitHub account. This is a fantastic way to practice your skills and get familiar with the different concepts and features of GitHub Actions. They also include some questions at the end of each module; I repeated those questions several times while studying for the exam, and I found them to be extremely helpful. However, I found this learning path to be a bit lacking in some areas, especially when it comes to the topics related to managing GitHub Actions for the enterprise.
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Automation Learning Pathways on GitHub Resources: a learning path by GitHub that is dedicated to the automation of processes through GitHub Actions. While not specifically dedicated to the exam, these modules cover many of the topics related to GitHub Actions, from basic to more advanced concepts.
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GitHub documentation: while not specifically designed to help you prepare for the exam, the official documentation is still an extremely helpful reference that you can use to learn more about the different concepts and features of GitHub Actions. I used the documentation to learn about the various types of triggers and environment variables available in GitHub Actions workflows.
If you like to study using video courses, I found these courses on Pluralsight to be helpful:
Strategies for preparing for the exam
Here are some strategies that I found helpful while preparing for the exam.
Get an understanding of the key concepts
Most exam questions are related to workflows (the first two topics), making up for around 60% of the total questions. Therefore, a good strategy for preparing for the exam might be to dedicate a larger portion of your study time to understanding the key concepts related to workflows. However, remember that workflows contribute to only 60% of the total score, and this might not be enough to pass the exam, so you should also be familiar with the other topics.
For the third topic, it’s important to understand the different types of actions that are available on GitHub, the differences between them, the syntax for the various commands and expressions, and the process of creating and publishing custom actions to the GitHub Marketplace.
For the part related to managing GitHub Actions for the enterprise, you should be familiar with the different GitHub Actions settings and policies available in GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub Enterprise Cloud. The number of questions related to this topic is small, so you may still be able to pass the exam even if you have never used GitHub Enterprise.
Get hands-on practice
Because the exam consists only of multiple-choice questions, you will not be asked to write any actual code or workflows. However, you still need to be able to read and understand the structure of a workflow and the syntax of the different commands and expressions. Therefore, it is fundamental to include a good amount of hands-on practice in your study plan, to complement the theoretical knowledge.
Creating your workflows and actions is the best way to get hands-on practice. You can start by creating simple workflows and actions and then gradually increase the complexity of your workflows and actions as you get more familiar with the different concepts and features of GitHub Actions.
This website can also be helpful to get practical experience with workflows: GitHub Actions Hero. The website offers some interactive tutorials that you can use to learn how to write workflows and how to apply some of the concepts. It also includes a graphical workflow visualizer.
Practice your test-taking skills
Make sure to also train your test-taking skills. The exam is 120 minutes long, and you will have to answer around 73 questions. This means that you will have less than two minutes to answer each question, so time management is crucial. Practicing your test-taking skills can help you improve your speed and manage your time better during the exam. The more you practice, the more you will be able to identify the keywords in the text of the questions.
At the time of writing, GitHub does not provide any official practice tests for the exam. However, I highly recommend checking out the GitHub Certified website created by Aleksander Fidelus. It’s a community website dedicated to helping people prepare for all the GitHub certification exams. It contains a set of (unofficial) practice questions for the GitHub Actions exam, which can help you get a better understanding of the topics covered in the exam and improve your test-taking skills. You can also find a list of study resources. The best part is that the website code is completely open-source! Everyone can help improve the questions or add new ones by contributing to the GitHub repository.
Schedule the exam as soon as possible
Try to schedule the exam as soon as possible. Setting a deadline will help you plan accordingly and stay motivated and focused on your study plan!
My experience with the exam
I took the GitHub Actions exam when it was available only to selected partners, so I wasn’t able to find much information about it online and I didn’t know what to expect from the exam or the difficulty level of the questions. However, the overall experience was positive, and the learning material provided (specifically the Microsoft Learn modules and the documentation) proved to be sufficient to pass the exam, together with some hands-on practice.
My previous experience with GitHub Actions came from creating workflows to automate processes on my repositories, and I had never used GitHub Enterprise before. Therefore, the last topic (Manage GitHub Actions for the enterprise) was the most challenging part of the exam for me. Given the lower weight that this topic has on the overall score, this didn’t prove to be a real problem after all.
I took the exam online with PSI, and the experience was smooth. The check-in process was very quick and straightforward, and I did not encounter any technical issues during the exam.
Was the GitHub Actions exam worth it? I would say yes! The exam was a great opportunity to get a deeper understanding of GitHub Actions and to learn the different concepts and features available. It also helped me learn new things that I can apply to my workflows, and I’ve even been able to create and publish a couple of GitHub Actions.
Conclusion
Overall, the GitHub Actions exam is an interesting opportunity to get a deeper understanding of the features and the potential of GitHub Actions.
If you already have some experience building and managing workflows on GitHub, you should not find many difficulties in passing the exam; just spend some time studying the different topics covered in the exam and you should be fine. Even if you are just getting started with GitHub Actions, you should be able to easily pass the exam with some hands-on practice and a good study plan.
I hope you found this article helpful, and good luck with your exam! 🤞
If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to reach out to me!
