GoToCertify AcademyCertificationsAGILEPM®AgilePM® Foundation — 2-day course (APMG)AgilePM® Practitioner — 2-day course (APMG)Compare AgilePM® certificationsDESIGN THINKINGDTMethod® Foundation — 2-day course (APMG)Compare Design Thinking certificationsDEVOPSDevOps FoundationDevOps LeaderSRE FoundationSRE PractitionerDevSecOps FoundationDevSecOps PractitionerAIOps FoundationObservability FoundationContinuous Testing FoundationVSM FoundationCompare DevOps certificationsISO 31000ISO 31000 Foundation — Exam Bundle (PECB)Risk Manager — Exam Bundle (PECB)Compare ISO 31000 certificationsISO/IEC 20000ISO/IEC 20000 Foundation — 2-day course (APMG)ISO/IEC 20000 Auditor — 2-day course (APMG)ISO/IEC 20000 Practitioner — 2-day course (APMG)Compare ISO/IEC 20000 certificationsISO/IEC 27001ISO/IEC 27001 Foundation — 2-day course (APMG)ISO/IEC 27001 Auditor — 2-day course (APMG)ISO/IEC 27001 Practitioner — 2-day course (APMG)Lead Implementer — Exam Bundle (PECB)Lead Auditor — Exam Bundle (PECB)Compare ISO/IEC 27001 certificationsISO/IEC 27005ISO/IEC 27005 Foundation — Exam Bundle (PECB)Risk Manager — Exam Bundle (PECB)Lead Risk Manager — Exam Bundle (PECB)Compare ISO/IEC 27005 certificationsISO/IEC 42001ISO/IEC 42001 Foundation — Exam Bundle (PECB)Lead Implementer — Exam Bundle (PECB)Lead Auditor — Exam Bundle (PECB)Compare ISO/IEC 42001 certificationsITIL® v5ITIL Foundation (Version 5)ITIL Foundation Bridge (Version 5)ITIL AI Governance (Version 5)ITIL Product (Version 5)ITIL Service (Version 5)ITIL Experience (Version 5)ITIL Strategy (Version 5)ITIL Transformation (Version 5)ITIL Managing Professional Transition (Version 5)Compare ITIL® v5 packagesLEAN SIX SIGMAYellow Belt (IASSC)Green Belt (IASSC)Black Belt (IASSC)Compare Lean Six Sigma certificationsM_o_R® 4M_o_R® 4 PractitionerMSP® 5MSP® 5 FoundationMSP® 5 PractitionerCompare MSP® 5 packagesPM²PM² Foundation — 2-day course (APMG)Compare PM² certificationsPRINCE2® 7PRINCE2® 7 FoundationPRINCE2® 7 PractitionerCompare PRINCE2® 7 packagesSCRUMScrum Essentials — 1-day course (APMG)Scrum Product Owner — 2-day course (APMG)Scrum Master — 2-day course (APMG)Compare Scrum certificationsTOGAFExam Simulator for TOGAF® EA FoundationExam Simulator for TOGAF® EA PractitionerTOGAF® EA Foundation — 2-day courseTOGAF® EA Practitioner — 2-day courseAll certificationsExam GuidesAGILEPM®Foundation (APMG)Practitioner (APMG)DESIGN THINKINGDTMethod Foundation (APMG)DEVOPSThe DevOps Foundation exam formatThe DevOps Leader exam formatThe SRE Foundation exam formatThe SRE Practitioner exam formatThe DevSecOps Foundation exam formatThe DevSecOps Practitioner exam formatThe AIOps Foundation exam formatThe Observability Foundation exam formatThe Continuous Testing Foundation exam formatThe VSM Foundation exam formatISO 31000Foundation (PECB)Risk Manager (PECB)ISO/IEC 20000Foundation (APMG)Auditor (APMG)Practitioner (APMG)ISO/IEC 27001Foundation (APMG)Auditor (APMG)Practitioner (APMG)Lead Auditor (PECB)Lead Implementer (PECB)ISO/IEC 27005Foundation (PECB)Risk Manager (PECB)Lead Risk Manager (PECB)ISO/IEC 42001Foundation (PECB)Lead Auditor (PECB)Lead Implementer (PECB)ITIL® v5The ITIL® v5 Foundation exam formatThe ITIL® v5 Foundation Bridge exam formatThe ITIL® v5 Service exam formatThe ITIL® v5 Product exam formatThe ITIL® v5 Experience exam formatThe ITIL® v5 Strategy exam formatThe ITIL® v5 Transformation exam formatThe ITIL® v5 AI Governance exam formatThe ITIL® v5 Managing Professional Transition exam formatITIL® 4 or ITIL® 5?The ITIL® v5 certification pathWhat ITIL® v5 certification costsLEAN SIX SIGMAYellow Belt (IASSC)Green Belt (IASSC)Black Belt (IASSC)M_o_R® 4The M_o_R® 4 Practitioner exam formatMSP® 5The MSP® 5 Foundation exam formatThe MSP® 5 Practitioner exam formatPM²Foundation (APMG)PRINCE2The PRINCE2 7 Foundation exam formatThe PRINCE2 7 Practitioner exam formatPRINCE2 Agile FoundationPRINCE2 Agile PractitionerWhat PRINCE2® 7 certification costsSCRUMEssentials (APMG)Product Owner (APMG)Scrum Master (APMG)TOGAFThe OGEA-101 exam formatThe OGEA-102 exam formatFoundation or Practitioner?The TOGAF 10 certification pathWhat certification costs Log inCreate account
← GoToCertify
DevOps · Foundation

The DevOps Foundation exam format, explained

Forty questions in sixty minutes, open book, sixty-five per cent to pass. An open-book paper with no prerequisites and no mandatory course — which makes it the easiest exam here to sit, and an easy one to underestimate.

Reviewed by GoToCertify’s accredited trainers

40Questions
60 minTime limit
26 / 40Pass mark
OpenBook

The exam on paper

The DevOps Foundation certificate covers the vocabulary, principles and practices of DevOps across the whole delivery chain.

Questions40, multiple choice
Duration60 minutes
Pass mark65% — 26 correct answers out of 40
MaterialsOpen book — the official training materials may be referenced
PrerequisitesNone
Accredited trainingNot required
LanguagesEight — English, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish
RenewalEvery three years, with 60 CPD points

Ninety seconds a question, with the book open

Sixty minutes across forty questions is ninety seconds each. That is the same ratio as ITIL® v5 Foundation — except ITIL Foundation is closed book and this one is not.

An open book with ninety seconds a question is a trap dressed as a gift. There is time for perhaps four or five genuine lookups across the whole paper. Plan for that number and it helps; treat the materials as a substitute for knowing the content and you will not finish.

Fourteen wrong answers is the margin. Sixty-five per cent sits between ITIL’s sixty-five and PRINCE2’s sixty at Foundation level, so it is unremarkable — but it is stricter than the fifty per cent of the ISO/IEC 27001 Foundation paper.

The syllabus is wider than the name suggests

“DevOps Foundation” sounds like a tooling certificate. It is not. The published coverage runs:

  • Core principles — the Three Ways, the Theory of Constraints, chaos engineering
  • Key practices — continuous integration and delivery, testing, deployment, site reliability engineering, DevSecOps
  • Business frameworks — Agile, IT service management, value stream management
  • Culture and organisational models
  • Automation and toolchains
  • Metrics and measurement

Two of those areas catch people out. Business frameworks asks how DevOps sits alongside ITSM and Agile, which engineers often have opinions about and rarely have definitions for. And culture is examined as content, not as atmosphere — there are named organisational models with named properties.

No gate of any kind

No prerequisites, no mandatory training, no experience requirement. You can buy an exam voucher with a Learning Resource Kit and sit the paper. Nothing is withheld pending proof of a course.

That is the opposite of the ITIL® v5 scheme, where every module above Foundation holds your result until an accredited course is evidenced. Whether the openness is a strength depends on what you want the certificate to say — it certifies that you know the syllabus, and makes no claim about what you have shipped.

What this means for how you prepare

Budget four lookups, not forty. Know the material; use the book to settle doubts, not to learn.

Learn the named models. The Three Ways, the Theory of Constraints, the organisational models — the exam tests names and properties, not vibes.

Do not skip the framework overlaps. Agile, ITSM and value stream management are examined alongside the engineering practices.

Questions people ask

Do I need a course to sit DevOps Foundation?

No. There are no prerequisites and accredited training is not required.

What is the pass mark in questions rather than per cent?

Twenty-six correct answers out of forty. The published figure is 65%.

Is it open book?

Yes. The official training materials may be referenced during the exam.

Which languages is the exam offered in?

Eight: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish.

Does the certification expire?

It needs renewing every three years, with 60 CPD points.

Is it about tools?

Only partly. Automation and toolchains are one area of six; culture, business frameworks and metrics are examined too.

Sources. Every figure on this page comes from PeopleCert’s own published certification pages, checked in September 2026.

Open book with ninety seconds a question is not a shortcut

The official exam voucher is on sale here, €505 excl. VAT. The exam is sat online, 24/7.

See the voucher
PeopleCert Accredited Training Organization and Approved Examination Organization

BITIL.COM is an ATO (Accredited Training Organization) and an AEO (Approved Examination Organization) of PeopleCert.

PrivacyTermsAboutVerify a GoToCertify certificate