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CNPA — IDPs and Developer Experience

8% of the CNPA exam. Sample questions below; the full library has 9 questions tagged to this domain.

Sample questions on IDPs and Developer Experience

IDPs and Developer Experience

Q1. Which of the following best describes a `golden path` in a developer portal?

Reveal answer and explanations
  1. A A templated, opinionated workflow for a common use case that embeds organizational best practices.

    Correct. A golden path is a templated, opinionated workflow that bakes in best practices and supported defaults.

  2. B A fully unsupported experimental pipeline that application teams can opt in to at their own risk only.

    Incorrect. Golden paths are supported, not experimental, and are opinionated to guide users.

  3. C A directory of every underlying cloud API presented raw without any opinionated wrappers or defaults.

    Incorrect. Raw cloud APIs are exactly what golden paths abstract away.

  4. D An internal marketplace for developers to purchase third-party SaaS products using a company credit card.

    Incorrect. A SaaS marketplace is a different concept from a developer golden path.

IDPs and Developer Experience

Q2. A platform team compares Backstage, Port, and Cortex. Which statement is MOST accurate?

Reveal answer and explanations
  1. A Backstage is a CNCF open-source framework, while Port and Cortex are commercial SaaS products with managed developer-portal offerings.

    Correct. Backstage is a CNCF open-source project; Port and Cortex are commercial SaaS developer-portal products.

  2. B Backstage, Port, and Cortex are all open-source projects hosted within the CNCF Sandbox as of every recent TOC vote.

    Incorrect. Port and Cortex are not CNCF projects.

  3. C Backstage, Port, and Cortex are all closed-source commercial products built on the same underlying Apache Helm framework.

    Incorrect. Backstage is open source; they are not all closed source and are not built on the same framework.

  4. D Backstage is the only one of the three that supports software catalogs; the others focus solely on incident response workflows.

    Incorrect. Port and Cortex also implement software catalogs, not just incident response.

IDPs and Developer Experience

Q3. Which CNCF project is commonly used as the foundation for building an internal developer portal with a software catalog?

Reveal answer and explanations
  1. A Kyverno

    Incorrect. Kyverno is a policy engine, not a developer portal.

  2. B Istio

    Incorrect. Istio is a service mesh, not a portal or catalog.

  3. C Backstage

    Correct. Backstage is a CNCF project for building internal developer portals centered on a software catalog.

  4. D OpenTelemetry

    Incorrect. OpenTelemetry is an observability framework, not a developer portal.

IDPs and Developer Experience

Q4. A Backstage software template scaffolds a new service by creating a GitHub repository and registering it in the catalog. Which file MUST exist in the generated repository so Backstage automatically shows the component in the catalog?

Reveal answer and explanations
  1. A `cncf-catalog.yml`

    Incorrect. No file named `cncf-catalog.yml` is required by Backstage.

  2. B `backstage.json`

    Incorrect. `backstage.json` is not the required catalog entity file.

  3. C `.backstage/registry.toml`

    Incorrect. `.backstage/registry.toml` is not a recognized Backstage path.

  4. D `catalog-info.yaml`

    Correct. `catalog-info.yaml` is the canonical Backstage catalog entity file that makes a repo discoverable.

IDPs and Developer Experience

Q5. Which of the following best represents the aim of an internal developer portal (IDP)?

Reveal answer and explanations
  1. A Replace the CI/CD pipeline system entirely with a manually managed ticket queue for every change.

    Incorrect. Manual ticketing is the opposite of self-service that IDPs enable.

  2. B Expose raw Kubernetes API access to every individual developer with no guardrails or abstractions.

    Incorrect. Raw API exposure without guardrails is not the aim of an IDP.

  3. C Provide a unified, discoverable entry point to platform capabilities for application developers.

    Correct. An IDP provides a unified, discoverable entry point to platform capabilities and information for developers.

  4. D Centralize all developer workstation administration and laptop provisioning inside the portal itself.

    Incorrect. Workstation administration is outside the scope of internal developer portals.

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How this domain is tested

IDPs and Developer Experience accounts for 8% of the CNPA exam. Expect questions that test recall of terminology and the ability to read short scenarios — not deep configuration. Use the sample questions above as difficulty calibration; if any feel hard, the rest of our 9-question domain bank will close those gaps.