AZ400-Q: choose hosted or self-hosted execution
A team has ordinary public-source builds with no private-network dependency. It spends significant effort patching its self-hosted build VMs and has no custom toolchain requirement. What is the best default runner choice?
- A) Keep self-hosted VMs because every pipeline needs permanent local state.
- B) Run builds on developer laptops.
- C) Use managed/hosted runners and reserve self-hosted runners for justified private connectivity, specialized tooling, or controlled environments. ✓
- D) Give self-hosted runners subscription Owner to simplify maintenance.
Answer: C. Hosted runners reduce maintenance for ordinary workloads. Self-hosted runners are appropriate when requirements justify their operational and security cost.
Why not the others: Permanent runner state harms repeatability. Developer laptops are not reliable CI infrastructure. Broad Azure access does not maintain an agent.