You can see it againUnder pressure people bring back shapes and positions long after the wording has gone.
Picture superiority · Shepard 1967, Standing 1973
GITLABGitLab Certified CI/CD Associate
The GitLab Certified CI/CD Associate certification validates your ability to design, implement, and manage CI/CD pipelines using GitLab. It is aimed at DevOps practitioners and developers who want to demonstrate their proficiency in automating software delivery with GitLab's built-in tools. Earning this credential shows you can streamline development workflows and improve release reliability.
Exam formatMultiple choice
DeliveryGitLab Learn
Free questions260
The certification
What GitLab Certified CI/CD Associate proves, and what it asks of you
What this certification covers, who it is written for, and what the exam itself looks like on the day.
4domains
12objectives
85concepts
What it is
What this certification is
What it validates, who it is written for, and the experience it assumes.
About this certification
The GitLab Certified CI/CD Associate certification confirms your hands-on skills in creating and managing continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines within GitLab. It covers the core concepts of pipeline configuration, including stages, jobs, and the use of the GitLab CI/CD YAML syntax.
This certification is designed for professionals who work with GitLab daily and want to formalize their expertise. It validates your ability to automate builds, tests, and deployments, enabling faster and more reliable software releases. Earning this credential demonstrates a practical understanding of GitLab's CI/CD capabilities and best practices.
Who it’s for
This certification is for DevOps engineers, software developers, and release engineers who use GitLab to build, test, and deploy software. It is ideal for individuals who are responsible for setting up and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and want to prove their proficiency. You should have a working knowledge of Git, the GitLab platform, and the fundamentals of CI/CD. The exam is practical and scenario-based, rewarding real-world experience over theoretical knowledge.
Recommended experience
At least six months of hands-on experience using GitLab CI/CD to build and deploy software. Creating and managing GitLab projects and repositories; Writing and maintaining .gitlab-ci.yml files; Configuring jobs, stages, and pipelines; Using GitLab Runners to execute jobs; Working with common CI/CD patterns like caching and artifacts
The syllabus
What you’ll learn
Every domain and objective GitLab measures, with the weight they carry on the exam.
The official GitLab exam outline · See the source
Domain 1: GitLab Workflow
- Objective: Explain what GitLab CI/CD is and why teams use it
- Objective: Apply a feature/topic branching workflow
- Objective: Verify a new feature
Domain 2: CI/CD Fundamentals
- Objective: Identify the key components needed for a CI/CD pipeline
- Objective: Explain GitLab's CI/CD functions
- Objective: Scope and persist variables at various levels
Domain 3: Continuous Integration
- Objective: Scaffold the basics of a test and build pipeline
- Objective: Use artifacts and dependency caching
- Objective: Build images for the GitLab registry
Domain 4: Continuous Deployment
- Objective: Scaffold review and deploy stages of a pipeline
- Objective: Apply the GitLab release and deployment workflow
- Objective: Deploy images to the GitLab registry
On the day
The exam itself
Everything GitLab publishes about sitting it, and nothing we inferred.
Prerequisites
No mandatory prerequisites — this certification has no required predecessor exam or credential.
CertificationGitLab Certified CI/CD Associate
Exam formatMultiple choice
DeliveryGitLab Learn
LanguagesEnglish
Certification levelAssociate
After you pass
Where this credential goes next
The path GitLab lays out, how the credential is kept, and where to book.
Step-by-step path to GitLab Certified CI/CD Associate
Credential earnedGitLab Certified CI/CD Associate Associate level certification Renewal and maintenance
GitLab certifications do not require renewal. Once earned, the GitLab Certified CI/CD Associate credential does not expire. Stay current with the latest technologies and maintain your certification.
Learn more about renewal requirements Lifecycle status
This certification is currently active and available. GitLab maintains this certification to validate current skills and industry relevance.
Exam status: ActiveMaintained by GitLab
Exam registration
Register for the exam through GitLab Learn, GitLab’s authorized testing partner.
Schedule your examVisit the official GitLab certification page for exam policies and requirements.
View the official pageYour coach
And when you are serious, your coach Pip takes over
Your coach in the app reads what you have answered with the book closed and tells you one thing to do tonight. It will not count an answer you gave with the page open, and it will tell you when you are not ready.
See how the coach worksBefore you book
Questions people ask
How does the GitLab Certified CI/CD Associate relate to the GitLab Certified Professional level?
The Associate certification is the entry-level credential in GitLab's certification program. It validates foundational CI/CD skills, while the Professional level covers more advanced topics. The Associate credential is not a prerequisite for the Professional certification, but it provides a solid foundation.
Is the GitLab Certified CI/CD Associate exam hands-on or lab-based?
The exam is a multiple-choice assessment delivered online through GitLab Learn. It is not a hands-on lab exam, but the questions are scenario-based and test your practical knowledge of GitLab CI/CD.
What is the retake policy if I fail the GitLab Certified CI/CD Associate exam?
GitLab's retake policy allows you to retake the exam after a waiting period. Specific waiting times and any associated fees are detailed on the official GitLab Learn platform.
What job roles does the GitLab Certified CI/CD Associate credential map to?
This credential is relevant for DevOps engineers, software developers, release engineers, and site reliability engineers who use GitLab to automate their software delivery processes.
Can I recertify by passing a different GitLab exam?
GitLab certifications do not require renewal, so there is no recertification process. The credential is valid indefinitely once earned.
Are there any regional restrictions for taking the GitLab Certified CI/CD Associate exam?
The exam is delivered online through GitLab Learn, making it available globally. However, you should check the GitLab Learn platform for any specific regional availability or restrictions.
Practice free questions 260 questions, free, no account needed.
The curriculum
The whole exam, mapped and written
Every domain, every objective, and every concept GitLab measures — each one written out.
4domains
12objectives
85concepts
56free pages
The domains, and what sits inside them
Every objective below is a page you can open and practise now, without an account.
The official GitLab exam outline · See the source
1Domain 1: GitLab Workflow78 questions
2Domain 2: CI/CD Fundamentals78 questions
3Domain 3: Continuous Integration62 questions
Not a table of contents
Every line on this map already opens
In front of every objective the practice pages are already there, free and without an account. This is one objective, opened.
Objective: Explain what GitLab CI/CD is and why teams use it5 pagesOpen →
Free in front of it
21 questions on this objective, five to a page. Every range above is a real page, open now, with no account.
Reading the map is not the same as knowing the ground
The curriculum tells you what is on the exam. Proving you know it is a different job — and it is the one the closed-book run does.
Free questions
260 questions. No account, no card.
The whole bank is open. 5 questions to a page, every answer explained, and a discussion thread on each one.
260questions
56pages
12objectives
Freealways
Browse by domain
Every objective, and every page range, is a link — so you can pick up exactly where you left off.
1Domain 1: GitLab Workflow78 questions
2Domain 2: CI/CD Fundamentals78 questions
3Domain 3: Continuous Integration62 questions
4Domain 4: Continuous Deployment42 questions
What a practice page gives you
1Five to a page
Short enough to finish, long enough to matter.
2Every answer explained
Not only which one is right — why the others are wrong.
3A discussion on each
Ask, answer, and vote. Every question has its own thread.
A question, and the idea behind it
Every question comes from a concept
These are not trivia. Each one is written against a concept in the book, so when you get one wrong there is somewhere to go and find out why.
The visual book
See it once. Carry it into the exam.
The pages shown here come from our AI-900 book — an example of how each concept is written in plain language and, where the idea needs one, drawn as a full page you can take in at a glance.
85concepts
260free questions
Why a picture, and not another paragraph
Three reasons, and each one is a real finding rather than a slogan.
You can see it againThe whole idea at onceWhere it starts, what happens in the middle, what comes out, and the mistake to avoid.
Multimedia principle · MayerThe look-alikes sit togetherThe pairs the exam tests are drawn side by side, so the difference is seen, not told.
Dual coding · PaivioWhat one page is made of
You are never asked to read a poster here — only to see how one is built. After that, every other page is legible at a glance.
1A numbered strip on top
The idea as a sequence, followed with a finger before a word is read.
2Panels for the parts
What it is, how the machine learns it, when it is the right tool.
3The trap, framed
The distinction the exam tests, given its own box instead of buried in prose.
4One line at the bottom
The sentence to carry into the exam room.
Open book, on purpose
Answer it with the picture beside you
This is the part that teaches. The illustration and the written explanation stay where they are while you work, so a scenario stops being a memory test and becomes something you can simply look at.
It teaches · it does not count
A smartphone uses AI to unlock when the owner looks at the camera. Which AI capability is being used?
AImage classification
BFacial recognition
COptical character recognition
DObject detection
Look at the five steps. Detect finds a face, align straightens it, encode turns it into numbers, search compares it with a stored face, and decide answers one question: is this the same person? Classification would only say “a face”. Detection would only draw a box. Neither decides whose.
Then the page shuts, and it starts counting
The same questions come back with the book closed — that run is the one that counts. After it, your coach picks one thing for tonight, sized to the time you have, and brings pages back before you lose them.
Testing effect · Roediger & Karpicke 2006 · spacing effect · Cepeda et al. 2006
Official resources
Straight from GitLab
Where the exam is defined, scheduled and scored.
1official link
85concepts mapped
The source
GitLab’s own pages
We link to them rather than repeat them, so nothing here goes stale behind them.
Checked against the source
Every objective on the official GitLab outline already has questions here
We build from the official skills outline, not from a summary of it — 12 objectives, 85 concepts written under them, and free questions against every one. When GitLab changes the outline, this page changes with it.
12objectives on the outline→85concepts written→260free questions
An official page tells you what will be asked. It cannot tell you what you will get right.
That is the only question worth answering the night before, and no link answers it. You answer it by taking the questions with the book closed, and seeing what comes back.