AZ400-Q: Self-hosted build agents
Q: A pipeline must run on a build machine inside the company that has a special hardware license and cannot be accessed from the internet. Which approach satisfies this requirement?
- A) Use a Microsoft-hosted agent — it always has the latest tools
- B) Install and register a self-hosted agent on the internal machine, add it to a custom agent pool, and have the pipeline use that pool ✓
- C) Run the build inside a Docker container on any pool
- D) Use a GitHub-hosted runner
Answer: B. Microsoft-hosted agents run in Azure-managed VMs you cannot control, so they cannot meet custom-license/offline requirements. You install the Azure Pipelines agent on the internal machine, register it with the organization, place it in a custom pool, and route the pipeline’s pool to that pool. Self-hosted agents give you full control of hardware, software, and isolation.
Why it helps
Agent/pool decisions (Microsoft-hosted vs self-hosted) and how to register and route to a pool are direct AZ-400 “manage agents & pools” objectives.