A developer wants a workflow to run every weekday at 8:00 AM UTC. Which cron expression in the schedule trigger achieves this?
Workflow Triggers
Question · Easy
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Which keyword in a workflow file is used to define a dependency between two jobs so that one job runs only after another completes successfully?
Workflow Structure
Chapter 1: Introduction & Exam Overview
1.1 Exam Structure, Format & Scoring
Study guide
A workflow step uses `${{ secrets.API_KEY }}` but the value is empty at runtime. The secret is correctly set in the repository settings. What is the most likely cause?
Security And Secrets
Question · Medium
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Which file must be present at the root of a repository to define a custom GitHub Action?
Custom Actions
A team wants to share a set of workflow steps across multiple repositories. Which approach is recommended?
Reusable Workflows
What is the correct syntax to reference an output from a previous step named 'build' within the same job?
1.2 GitHub Actions Architecture & Core Mental Model
An organization wants to restrict which actions can be used in their repositories. Where is this configured?
Enterprise Management
Which of the following is a valid way to pass an environment variable to all steps in a job?
A workflow uses a matrix strategy to test against Node.js versions 16, 18, and 20 on both ubuntu-latest and windows-latest. How many job instances will be created?
Which GitHub Actions runner type should be used when a workflow requires a GPU for machine learning model testing?
Runners
1.3 Hands-On Preparation & Exam Day Strategy
What happens when a workflow job exceeds the maximum execution time limit on a GitHub-hosted runner?
A developer wants to cache npm dependencies between workflow runs to speed up CI. Which action should they use?
Workflow Optimization
Which expression function checks if the previous step failed, allowing a subsequent step to run cleanup logic?
How should secrets be passed to a reusable workflow?
Chapter 2: Workflow Triggers & Event Architecture
2.1 Webhook & Code Events: push, pull_request, and pull_request_target
What is the purpose of the 'concurrency' key in a GitHub Actions workflow?
A composite action needs to run a shell command. Which shell specification is required in each run step?
Question · Hard
Which of the following correctly publishes a Docker container action to GitHub Packages?
A self-hosted runner needs to be configured to only accept jobs from a specific repository. How is this achieved?
2.2 Scheduled & Manual Triggers: schedule, workflow_dispatch, and repository_dispatch
Which workflow trigger fires when a pull request is opened, synchronized (new push to the PR branch), or reopened by default?
How can a workflow be triggered manually from the GitHub UI?
An organization uses OIDC (OpenID Connect) to deploy to AWS from GitHub Actions. What is the primary security benefit over storing long-lived AWS credentials as secrets?
What is the difference between 'actions/upload-artifact' and 'actions/cache'?
2.3 Release, Issue, and Dynamic Lifecycle Events
A workflow needs to deploy to a 'production' environment and require manual approval before the deployment job runs. How is this configured?
Which command sets an output parameter in a workflow step using the modern approach (post-October 2022)?
Which type of GitHub Action runs directly on the runner machine without a container?
What is the maximum size of a single secret that can be stored in GitHub Actions?
2.4 Branch, Tag, and Path Filtering Patterns
A workflow uses 'permissions: contents: read' at the workflow level. A specific job needs to push changes back to the repository. How should permissions be configured?
Which GitHub Actions feature allows you to define a set of variables that differ between deployment environments (e.g., staging vs. production)?
A developer creates a JavaScript action. Which file specifies the entry point that the runner should execute?
How do you prevent a workflow from running when specific files are changed, such as documentation updates?
Chapter 3: Jobs, Matrix Strategies & Execution Control
3.1 Job Anatomy, Step Execution & Job Dependencies (needs)
A workflow needs to access the name of the branch that triggered the run. Which context variable provides this?
Which strategy option in a matrix build allows remaining jobs to complete even if one job in the matrix fails?
An organization wants to track GitHub Actions usage and costs across all repositories. Which feature provides this visibility?
What is the purpose of the 'GITHUB_TOKEN' secret that is automatically available in every workflow?
3.2 Contexts, Expressions & Functions
A development team uses GitHub Actions to publish npm packages. Which registry URL should be configured to publish to GitHub Packages?
Which YAML syntax correctly defines a workflow that triggers on pushes to the main branch only?
A workflow step needs to add a directory to the system PATH for all subsequent steps in the same job. How is this done?
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