CGOA exam prep: why 50 clusters of Argo CD got me an 82
I wrote the longer version, with the full domain breakdown and my prep timeline, on my blog . I run Argo CD in production on 50 Kubernetes clusters across several public clouds. Before studying for the Certified GitOps Associate , I took a practice test cold and scored 82. Passing is 75, so fine on paper. The questions I missed were the ones I didn't expect to miss. The CGOA does not grade how…
The Certified GitOps Associate (CGOA) exam consists of 50 multiple-choice questions to be completed within 90 minutes. Achieving a passing score of 75 requires a deep understanding of OpenGitOps principles, terminology, patterns, and related practices. In this exam, GitOps Patterns account for 20% of the questions, followed by Tooling at 14%.
The exam focuses on the exact wording of the questions, so memorizing the precise terminology is crucial. The four OpenGitOps principles – Declarative, Versioned and Immutable, Pulled Automatically, and Continuously Reconciled – must be memorized and applied word-for-word. Common pitfalls include misinterpreting phrases like "pulled automatically" or mixing up terms like "desired state" and "actual state".
Tooling questions, primarily about Argo CD and Flux, are relatively rare and form only 16% of the exam. The mental model for GitOps is best understood as a control loop, with the desired state stored in Git and continuously reconciled by agents.
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