Continuous Integration Certifications
Optimizing performance through hosted builds, caching, and proprietary Test Intelligence™. Designed to be blazing fast, simple, and open to help make developers' lives easier. Plus, all the scalable features needed to meet enterprise demands – with developer autonomy alongside software efficiency , reliability, and security.
- For Developers
- For Administrators
- For Architects
Prepare for the Exam
Get Certified | Harness Expert
Continuous Integration - Developer
Product version: Harness CI Free/Team PlansReview Study Guide
Assesses the fundamental skills to deploy CI projects.
| Topic | Material |
|---|---|
| 1. Harness Basics, Platform Entities, and Key Concepts | |
| Familiarize with artifacts, packages, and different CI build infrastructures | Harness CI |
| Set up and configure connectors like Git and Docker Hub | Connect to an Artifact Repo |
| 2. Grasp the role of Harness Delegate and differences between Pipeline Studio and YAML structure | |
| Understand and use Harness expressions and variables | Fixed values, runtime inputs, and expressions |
| Get familiar with different types of artifacts and scanning options | Artifacts tab |
| 3. Discover supported platforms and Operating Systems on Harness Cloud | |
| Define and configure connectors, and understand their usage | Create a connector using YAML |
| Learn about the Harness Delegate and Harness Manager | Harness Platform architecture |
| 4. RBAC, best practices, and small configuration tasks | |
| Understand shared paths and Drone/CI plugins | CI pipeline basics |
| Learn about caching and test intelligence in Harness | Cache Intelligence |
| 5. Configure triggers, input sets, overlays, and failure strategies in CI | |
| Understand and apply conditional execution and looping strategies | Looping strategies overview -- matrix, repeat, and parallelism |
| Learn about advanced options such as timeout settings and selective stage executions | CI Build stage settings |
| 6. Set up notifications based on pipeline events | |
| Configure and run steps on host vs containers | Run Step Settings |
| Learn about chaining pipelines and GitHub actions support in Harness CI | Pipeline chaining in Harness |
| 7. Navigate through the Harness User Interface features such as the Overview, Build and Pipelines tabs | |
| Understand and configure tags and the execution history tab in Pipeline Studio | Tags References |
| Learn about details, inputs, and outputs in step configuration | Use step groups to organize CI steps |
| 8. Understand Docker Image pulls, their risks, and how to use images when shells are unavailable | |
| Learn about troubleshooting pipeline steps and Harness Cloud's advantages | Troubleshoot CI |
| Set up and manage user groups and permissions at different levels | Add and manage target groups |
| 9. Perform a basic Delegate installation and set container resources | |
| Learn about chained pipelines and GitHub actions support | Use the GitHub Action plugin step |
| Get familiar with common CI plugins and how to configure them | Explore plugins |
Exam Details
The Continuous Integration Developer exam tests your knowledge and skills of the Harness Integration Delivery module.
Prerequisites
- Basic terminal skills
- Basic understanding of on-premise or cloud architecture
Exam Details
Exam Duration: 90 minutes
Question Type: Multiple choice
| Covered Domain | Coverage |
|---|---|
| CI Domain | 65% |
| Hosted Builds | 15% |
| Test Intelligence | 10% |
| Code Configuration | 10% |
Exam Objectives
List of Objectives
Next Steps
The Continuous Integration Developer exam can start immediately after registering. Please allow up to 90 mins for the exam.
- Create an account in Harness University
- Register for an exam
- Take the exam
Prepare for the Exam
Get Certified | Harness Expert
Continuous Integration - Administrator
Product version: Harness CI Enterprise PlanReview Study Guide
Assesses the fundamental skills to deploy and maintain CI projects and the overall Harness Platform. This exam builds upon the CI Developer Certification.
| Topic | Material |
|---|---|
| 1. Introduction to Harness and Key Concepts | |
| Understand continuous integration fundamentals, including critical stages or steps | Harness CI |
| Grasp the core concepts: "Pipeline, Stages, Step Groups, Steps" and Harness hierarchy "Account, Organizations, Projects" | Key Concepts |
| Familiarize with Harness Manager and the role of Harness Delegate for CI capability | CI Pipeline Basics |
| 2. Harness Build Infrastructure and Configuration | |
| Explore Harness Cloud supported platforms, OS, and build infrastructures | Use Harness Cloud build infrastructure |
| Dive into CI Build Infrastructures and their diverse options | Harness CI |
| Understand Ephemeral Environments and the specific requirements for a K8s Build environment | Which build infrastructure is right for me |
| 3. Artifact Management and Connectivity | |
| Grasp Artifacts and Packages spanning from jar to container image, helm, and more | Artifacts Tab |
| Describe and configure Artifact Repositories like cont registry, object store, jfrog, nexus, etc | Connect to an Artifact repository |
| Delve into Harness Connectors: configuration of Git, DockerHub, and more | Connectors |
| 4. Harness CI Pipelines and Advanced Features | |
| Master Codebase configuration, shared paths, and step library, including plugin configurations | Create and configure a codebase |
| Understand and set up advanced features like caching intelligence, test intelligence, and flow control | Cache Intelligence |
| Configure pipeline features, including triggers, input sets, failure strategies, looping, and notifications | Input sets and overlays |
| 5. Pipeline Execution Strategies | |
| Get to grips with execution environments: running steps on host vs. containers | Stage and step conditional execution settings |
| Manage outputs, PR status updates, and understand chained pipelines | Output variables with chained pipeline |
| Delve into advanced options like timeouts, selective stage executions, and stage context sharing | Continuous Integration (CI) FAQs |
| 6. Security and Access Control | |
| Understand RBAC with user groups, roles, role bindings, and service account considerations | RBAC in Harness |
| Configure access and permissions, including tags and resource groups | Permissions Reference |
| Grasp the implications of anonymous Docker image pulls and other security considerations | Docker Connector Settings Reference |
| 7. Authentication and User Management | |
| Deep dive into OAuth, SAML, and SCIM integrations | Authentication |
| Set up and manage credentials, user and group permissions, and more | Manage user groups |
| Delve into debugging and troubleshooting techniques, including running pipeline steps locally | Troubleshoot CI |
| 8. Policy-Based Governance and Compliance | |
| Explore and configure policy as code with OPA and Rego | Harness Policy As Code quickstart |
| Enforce governance within pipelines and understand templates for Harness CI | Manage access control for asset governance rules |
| Familiarize with account audit trails and their respective use cases | View audit trail |
| 9. Enterprise Features and Dashboards | |
| Delve into Enterprise dashboards, including custom options like Looker | Best practices for building dashboards |
| Explore Pipeline Studio's execution history and other related features | Run pipelines using input sets and overlays |
| Get a handle on pipeline templatization for scalable CI solutions | Best practices and guidelines for templates |
Exam Details
The Continuous Integration Administrator exam tests your knowledge and skills of the Harness Continuous Integration module.
Prerequisites
- Intermediate terminal skills
- Basic understanding of on-premise or cloud architecture
- This exam builds upon the CI Developer Exam
Exam Details
| Exam Type | Duration |
|---|---|
| Knowledge Exam | 90 minutes |
| Hands On Exam | 120 minutes |
| Covered Domain | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Harness Basics, Platform Entities, and Key Concepts | 60% |
| Harness CI Pipelines and its Features | 20% |
| RBAC, Best Practices, and Small Config Tasks | 10% |
| Enterprise - Policy-based Governance (OPA), Dashboards, and Pipeline Templatization | 10% |
Exam Objectives
List of Objectives
Next Steps
The Continuous Integration Administrator exam can start immediately after registering. Please allow 90 mins for the knowledge exam and approximately 90 minutes for the hands on exam.
- Create an account in Harness University
- Register for an exam. There is a $50 fee for the exam
- Review the instructions for the Hands On Exam
- Take the exams
- There will be a knowledge and hands on portion.
Prepare for the Exam
Get Certified | Harness Expert
Continuous Integration - Architect (BETA COMING SOON)
Product version: Harness CI Enterprise PlanReview Study Guide (BETA Coming Soon)
Assess key technical job functions and advanced skills in design, implementation and management of CI. This exam builds upon the CI Admin Certification
| Topic | Material |
|---|---|
| 1: Advanced CI Concepts and Harness Practices | |
| Discuss the principles of Continuous Integration in the context of the Harness platform, including advanced practices such as parallel execution, matrix builds, and pipeline optimization. | What is Harness CI |
| Design and implement CI strategies within Harness, evaluating and analyzing the benefits and drawbacks in various contexts. | Looping strategies overview -- matrix, repeat, and parallelism |
| Implement advanced CI best practices within the Harness environment, such as trunk-based development, branch by abstraction, and feature toggling. | Pipeline chaining and more |
| 2: Harness CI Tools Proficiency | |
| Demonstrate expert-level knowledge of Harness’s CI capabilities, utilizing its unique features to fit specific project requirements. | All Harness CI Tutorials |
| Customize and extend Harness CI functionalities through scripts or platform settings for complex CI flows. | What's supported by Harness CI |
| Integrate Harness with other elements of the DevOps toolchain, including version control systems, artifact repositories, and deployment tools. | Optimize and enhance CI |
| 3: Version Control and Harness Integration | |
| Exhibit proficiency in managing complex Version Control Systems (VCS) within the Harness environment, focusing on advanced branching and merging strategies. | Unified CI/CD |
| Demonstrate the ability to manage large-scale codebases in Harness, including conflict resolution, code reviews, and blame tracking. | Code coverage |
| Implement advanced GitOps strategies within a CI context in Harness, including automated synchronization, error handling, and rollback procedures. | Add a Harness GitOps repository |
| 4: Advanced Testing Strategies with Harness CI | |
| Apply advanced software testing techniques within Harness CI pipelines, including component testing, mutation testing, property-based testing, and contract testing. | Run tests in CI pipelines |
| Implement test environment management and test data management practices within Harness CI pipelines. | Format test reports |
| Manage complex testing scenarios in Harness, including handling flaky tests and performance tests. | Enable Test Intelligence |
| 5: Harness Build Systems and Scripting | |
| Exhibit proficiency in using Harness for managing advanced build systems and tools, including handling complex dependencies, multi-module projects, and artifact management. | Background step settings |
| Write complex build scripts and manage script lifecycle within the Harness environment. | Optimize and enhance CI pipelines |
| Optimize build performance and manage build infrastructure using Harness. | Set up build infrastructure |
| 6: Harness CI Metrics and Insights | |
| Analyze and interpret advanced CI metrics in Harness, including build times, pass/fail rates, flaky tests, and code coverage. | DORA metrics dashboard |
| Implement monitoring and alerting within Harness CI pipelines. | Dashboards |
| Use insights from Harness CI metrics to drive process improvement and optimization. | Troubleshoot CI |
| 7: Security Practices in Harness CI | |
| Implement secure development practices within Harness CI, including static code analysis, dynamic analysis, and secret scanning. | View code coverage reports on the Artifacts tab |
| Manage access control, credentials, and permissions within the Harness CI environment. | Manage access control |
| Discuss and implement security incident response within Harness CI pipelines. | Configure audit streaming |
| 8: Harness CI/CD Pipeline as Code | |
| Implement CI/CD Pipeline as Code in Harness, enabling versioning, peer review, and auditability of pipelines. | Git Experience vs Configuration as Code FAQs |
| Apply best practices for structuring, testing, and maintaining CI/CD Pipeline as Code in Harness. | Harness Policy As Code quickstart |
| Manage complex multi-stage pipelines in Harness using Pipeline as Code. | Use multiple services and environments in a deployment |
| 9: Scaling CI/CD Systems in Harness | |
| Demonstrate knowledge of scaling CI/CD systems in Harness, including distributed builds, parallelization, and handling of large codebases. | Queue Intelligence |
| Implement auto-scaling in Harness to manage load in CI/CD systems. | Use Harness Cloud build infrastructure |
| Apply advanced troubleshooting techniques to address common bottlenecks in scaled CI/CD systems within Harness. | Troubleshoot CI |
Exam Details (BETA Coming Soon)
The Continuous Integration Architect exam tests your knowledge and skills of the Harness Continuous Integration module.
Prerequisites
- Basic terminal skills
- Advanced understanding of on-premise or cloud architecture
- This exam builds upon the Continuous Integration Admin
Exam Details
| Exam Type | Duration |
|---|---|
| Knowledge Exam | 90 minutes |
| Hands On Exam | 120 minutes |
| Covered Domain | % of Coverage |
|---|---|
| Advanced CI Concepts and Harness Practices | 12.5% |
| Harness CI Tools Proficiency | 12.5% |
| Version Control and Harness Integration | 12.5% |
| Advanced Testing Strategies with Harness CI | 12.5% |
| Harness Build Systems and Scripting | 12.5% |
| Harness CI Metrics and Insights | 12.5% |
| Security Practices in Harness CI | 12.5% |
| Harness CI/CD Pipeline as Code | 12.5% |
| Scaling CI/CD Systems in Harness | 12.5% |
Exam Objectives
List of Objectives
Next Steps
The Continuous Integration Architect exam can start immediately after registering. Please allow up to 90 mins for the knowledge exam and up to 2 hours for the hands-on exam.
- Create an account in Harness University
- Register for an exam. There is a $50 fee for the exam
- Review the instructions for the Hands-On Exam
- Take the exams
- There will be a knowledge and hands-on portion.