CGOA Practice Exam Questions with Answers Certified GitOps Associate Exam Certification

AState Storein GitOps is the system of record whereDesired State declarationsare kept. It must be immutable and versioned to ensure full auditability, traceability, and rollback capabilities. Git itself is the most common State Store.

“The Desired State must be stored in a State Store that is versioned and immutable. This guarantees traceability and enables recovery by reverting to previous commits.”

Thus, the correct answer isD.

Terraform (or OpenTofu)uses a declarative model and maintains astate fileto track the current status of resources, enabling it to plan and reconcile changes.Ansible, by contrast, is more procedural and executes tasks in afire-and-forgetmanner, without tracking persistent resource state.

“Terraform maintains state for each managed resource, enabling planned, consistent changes. Ansible executes tasks without tracking resource state, working in a fire-and-forget model.”

Thus, the correct answer isB.

Thefeedback loopis critical in GitOps reconciliation. It continuously monitors the system’s actual state and compares it to the desired state. This loop determines when reconciliation is required and whether a full or partial synchronization is necessary.

“The feedback loop in reconciliation continuously observes the actual state. It determines if reconciliation is required, and informs whether to perform a partial or full sync to align with the declared desired state.”

Thus, the correct answer isA.

Helm is a Kubernetes package manager widely used in GitOps for packaging, configuring, and deploying complex applications. Helm charts bundle configuration, dependencies, and Kubernetes manifests into reusable, declarative packages that can be applied across multiple clusters.

“Helm charts provide a way to package Kubernetes applications, defining configuration and dependencies declaratively. This allows consistent deployment across clusters in GitOps workflows.”

Thus, the correct answer isA.

In GitOps, rollback is the process of reverting to a previous known-good configuration stored in Git. This is typically done when a deployment introduces abug, error, or failurethat impacts system stability.

“Rollback in GitOps is used to revert to a previous commit representing a stable configuration when the current deployment causes errors or failures.”

Thus, the correct answer isA.

AGitOps-managed software systemis defined as one or more runtime environments whose resources are managed declaratively via GitOps practices.

“A GitOps-managed software system includes one or more runtime environments, such as clusters, where resources are under management. The desired state of these resources is declared in Git and reconciled continuously.”

Thus, the correct option isB.

The first GitOps principle isDeclarative Descriptions. This means the desired system configuration (for infrastructure, services, and applications) is expressed declaratively and stored in version control. Git becomes the single source of truth.

“The desired system state must be expressed declaratively. This provides a clear, machine-readable blueprint for the system, and ensures that what is in Git is what should be running in the environment.”

Therefore,infrastructure and application configurations must be defined declaratively and stored in Git, not managed imperatively or manually.

In GitOps,pull-based deploymentis fundamental. Instead of pushing changes into a cluster, GitOps agents running inside the cluster continuouslypull from Gitto reconcile desired state.

“GitOps uses a pull-based model: agents inside the cluster continuously poll the Git repository for desired state changes. If changes are found, they reconcile the live system automatically to match the declared state.”

This ensures secure, automated, and consistent deployments.

Thus,Dis correct.

ThePulled AutomaticallyGitOps principle refers to the way software agents continuously access theDesired Statestored in the State Store (e.g., Git). Agents automatically pull the state from the repository and reconcile the system accordingly.

“Software agents automatically pull the desired state declarations from the source of truth (State Store) and continuously reconcile the system to match.”

Thus, the correct answer isD.

In GitOps,everything that defines the system, including dashboards, must be stored declaratively in Git(the Desired State store). This ensures dashboards are versioned, reproducible, and consistent across environments.

“GitOps requires that all system components, including monitoring and observability configurations such as dashboards, are declared in Git. This ensures they are versioned, immutable, and reproducible.”

Thus,Dis correct.

In GitOps,Git is the single source of truth. If changes are made manually in the cluster (viakubectl), those changes will drift from the desired state in Git. To ensure consistency, the correct approach is toupdate the Git repository (Desired State store)so that the reconciler can continuously apply and maintain those changes.

“The desired state must always be declared in Git. Manual changes in the cluster will be overwritten by reconciliation unless they are committed to the Git repository.”

Thus, the correct answer isB.

A GitOps-managed Kubernetes cluster uses reconciliation loops to continuously compare the actual state of the system with the desired state declared in Git. When drift (divergence between declared configuration and live cluster state) is detected, the GitOps operator automatically reconciles the difference to bring the system back into alignment.

“In GitOps, a reconciliation loop ensures that the desired state as declared in Git is continuously compared with the observed state of the system. If drift is detected, the system automatically takes corrective action to reconcile the difference and restore the declared configuration.”

This ensures consistency, reliability, and self-healing. Manual intervention is not required for drift correction, as the automated reconciliation is a core principle of GitOps.

The process of keeping theactual statein sync with thedesired stateis calledReconciliation. GitOps controllers (e.g., ArgoCD, Flux) continuously reconcile system resources to match what is declared in Git.

“Reconciliation is the process by which agents compare the actual system state to the desired state and automatically make changes to converge them.”

Thus, the correct answer isA: Reconciliation.