Approvals and Deployment Gates
MS Learn path: Implement secure continuous deployment — module 4.
Overview
The human and automated guardrails on a CD pipeline. Covers environments, the checks attached to them (approvals, branch protection, invoke REST/metrics gates), and dynamic approval targeting so the right approver is reached at the right time.
Units
- Environments as deployment targets with checks
- Approval checks: pre-deployment human sign-off
- Dynamic approval targeting (choose approvers at runtime)
- Additional checks & gates: branch policy, metrics/work-item, invoke REST
Concepts introduced
Key terms & commands
- Environment with an Approval check; stage targets
environment: prod. - Dynamic approvers resolved from variables/groups/fields at run time.
- Gates = automated: watch Azure Monitor metrics/logs or work items; pass/fail over a window with retries.
- Approvals = who says yes; gates = does health say yes.
Hands-on
⚠ verify — add: create an environment, attach an approval check (dynamic approver), and add a metrics/work-item gate.
Exam focus
- Approvals & gates attach to environments, evaluate before the stage runs (pre-deployment).
- Typical: approval on production only; dynamic targeting for on-call/branch-aware routing.
- Post-deployment monitoring gates drive canary/ring expansion.
Related
environment-approvals · dynamic-approval-checks · deployment-gate · secure-cd · Path MOC