Day 3 Challenge — Improve Your Pipeline

Mitch Mommers01/06/2026About 1 min

Day 3 Challenge — Improve Your Pipeline

You now have a working pipeline with validation, security scans, artifact creation, deployment to dev, post-deployment testing, and promotion to test.

Pick a challenge and improve the existing setup.

Challenge A — Production Deployment

Add a production deployment stage.

Requirements:

deploy only from main
depend on successful test deployment
use the same build artifact
require approval through an Azure DevOps environment
run a simple production smoke test

Challenge B — Better Artifact Traceability

Improve how the pipeline proves what was built and deployed.

Requirements:

include metadata such as commit SHA, build number, branch, and build date
print metadata during deploy stages
prove dev and test use the same artifact
publish deployment evidence as a pipeline artifact

Challenge C — Rollback Preparation

Prepare the pipeline for rollback.

Requirements:

record which artifact was deployed
keep previous artifacts available
document how to redeploy a previous known-good artifact
optionally add a manual rollback stage placeholder

Challenge D — Key Vault Secret Handling

Move one secret out of YAML or app configuration and into Key Vault.

Requirements:

store at least one secret in Azure Key Vault
avoid hardcoding the secret in YAML
give access only to the identity that needs it
document whether the pipeline or application reads the secret

Challenge E — Environment Configuration

Improve dev/test configuration separation.

Requirements:

configure environment-specific App Service settings during deployment
keep environment-specific values out of the artifact
document which values differ between dev and test
prove the same artifact behaves differently because of configuration

Challenge F — Better Post-Deployment Verification

Improve the checks that run after deployment.

Requirements:

test at least two deployed API endpoints
fail or warn clearly when the app is unhealthy
publish useful output for troubleshooting
optionally compare dev and test responses