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Azure AZ-204 Guide: Developer Associate

Azure AZ-204 exam guide covering app services, storage, security, monitoring, and integration decisions.

This section targets Microsoft Azure Developer Associate AZ-204, the Azure developer exam for application hosting, event-driven integration, identity, secrets, storage, and monitoring. The strongest answers on this exam usually come from choosing the right service plus the right configuration for the scenario, so these pages stay focused on developer trade-offs rather than generic product summaries.

SDK: Software development kit that packages libraries, clients, and helpers for calling Azure services from application code.

Managed identity: Microsoft Entra-backed identity for Azure resources so code can authenticate to Azure services without storing secrets directly.

At a glance

Exam fact Current official value
Level Associate
Time limit 100 minutes
Delivery Proctored exam
Experience note Microsoft may include interactive components
Current skills measured date January 14, 2026
Retirement date July 31, 2026
Audience profile Developers participating across design, build, deploy, secure, maintain, and monitor phases

The current Microsoft study guide breaks AZ-204 into five weighted skill lanes, and this online guide now follows that structure directly:

How to use this guide

  1. Use the study plan if you want a structured route through the current five skill lanes.
  2. Work the five weighted chapters in order, starting with Compute and Storage.
  3. Use the cheat sheet for code-adjacent service pickers and high-yield defaults after the chapter logic is clear.
  4. Work through the sample questions to practice Azure developer decision prompts with full explanations.
  5. Use the glossary when identity, messaging, storage, and deployment terms start to blur together.
  6. Use the resources page for the current Microsoft certification page, study guide, Learn modules, and product docs.
  7. Use the faq for readiness, lab expectations, and exam-day strategy.

Coverage map against the current study guide

Skill lane Weight What to study first
1. Compute 25-30% 1.1 Containers, ACR & Container Apps, 1.2 App Service, Scaling & Slots
2. Storage 15-20% 2.1 Cosmos DB, Consistency & Change Feed, 2.2 Blob Storage, Metadata & Lifecycle
3. Security 15-20% 3.1 Auth, SAS & Microsoft Graph, 3.2 Key Vault, Config & Managed Identity
4. Monitoring 5-10% 4.1 App Insights, Logs & Alerts
5. Integration 20-25% 5.1 API Management & Policies, 5.3 Service Bus & Queue Storage

What strong answers usually do

  • pick the right Azure service and the right developer-facing configuration
  • separate runtime choice, identity choice, integration pattern, and monitoring path
  • prefer Azure-native managed identity, secrets, and eventing patterns when they reduce operational risk
  • think about retries, idempotency, rollout safety, and observability as part of the design

Review flow

    flowchart LR
	  A["Compute and deployment"] --> B["Storage and data access"]
	  B --> C["Identity and secrets"]
	  C --> D["Messaging and integration"]
	  D --> E["Monitoring and troubleshooting"]

If two answers both sound right

For AZ-204, the stronger answer is usually the one that stays in the developer implementation lane:

  • choose the option that fixes the runtime, identity, integration, or monitoring boundary first
  • choose the Azure-native managed pattern that lowers operational risk
  • choose the option that keeps deployment, retries, and observability explicit instead of hidden

In this section

Revised on Monday, June 15, 2026
AZ-500
AZ-305