CNCF-CNPA Exam Information and Outline
Cloud Native Platform Engineering Associate
Syllabus Update Checked on: October 30, 2026
CNCF-CNPA Exam Syllabus & Study Guide
Before you start practicing with our exam simulator, it is essential to understand the
official CNCF-CNPA exam objectives. This course outline serves as your roadmap.
The information below reflects the 2026 syllabus defined by
CNCF.
Below are complete topics detail with latest syllabus and course outline, that will help you good knowledge about exam objectives and topics that you have to prepare. These contents are covered in questions and answers pool of exam.
- Exam Format
- 60 multiple-choice questions; 90 minutes; online proctored
- Platform Engineering Core Fundamentals (36%)
- Declarative resource management and DevOps practices
- Application environments and infrastructure concepts
- Platform architecture and capabilities
- Continuous integration fundamentals
- Platform Observability, Security and Conformance (20%)
- Traces, metrics, logs and events
- Secure service communication and policy engines
- Kubernetes security essentials
- Continuous Delivery and Platform Engineering (16%)
- CI pipelines, CD and GitOps workflows
- Incident response
- Platform APIs and Provisioning Infrastructure (12%)
- Kubernetes reconciliation loop and APIs
- Self-service and Kubernetes operators
- Infrastructure as code
- IDPs and Developer Experience (8%)
- Internal developer portals and simplified access
- AI/ML in platform automation
- Measuring Your Platform (8%)
- Platform efficiency and DORA metrics