Software delivery is accelerating while governance, AI adoption, and supply-chain risk get more complex. Teams need a shared, verifiable baseline across Git, CI/CD, Copilot, platform administration, and AppSec. The new GitHub certifications—GH900, GH100, GH200, GH300, and GH500—give you exactly that: role-appropriate credentials mapped to real product skills, recognized on Microsoft Learn and GitHub Learn. 

This article serves as a comprehensive guide to GitHub's role-based certifications, designed to help individuals and organizations enhance their skills in automation, AI, and security. Whether you're a developer, platform administrator, or security engineer, these certifications provide a structured path to mastering GitHub's tools and best practices, enabling teams to deliver software faster, more securely, and with greater confidence. 

What you gain (org & individual): 

• Speed with guardrails: Standardize CI on pull requests, deploy with approvals, and embed security checks—without slowing developers. 

• Credibility & clarity: Clear learning paths, practice assessments, and public badges make skills visible to peers, leadership, and hiring managers. 

• Futureproofing: Formalize AI-assisted development practices, privacy controls, and prompt engineering via GH300. 

Exam format 

The GitHub certification exams are delivered through Pearson VUE, offering flexibility to candidates. You can register for the exams online and choose to take them either from the comfort of your home with a secure proctoring setup or at an authorized testing center. The exams consist of approximately 40–60 multiple-choice questions and typically last 60–120 minutes, depending on the certification. 

Note that the GH900 exam is not proctored, while all other exams require proctoring to ensure exam integrity.  

Portfolio Summary 

GH900 — GitHub Foundations 

What it validates: Git, pull requests, GitHub Projects, collaboration basics, and entry-level platform concepts.** 

Who it’s for: New hires, PMs/analysts, cross-functional contributors. 

Prepare / take the exam: GH900 Certification • GH900 Study guide 

GH100 — GitHub Administration 

What it validates: Org/enterprise governance, SSO/SCIM, branch policies, audit logs, Marketplace policy, and enterprise-scale workflows. 

Who it’s for: Platform admins and central DevOps/platform engineering teams. 

Prepare / take the exam: GH100 Certification • GH100 Study guide 

GH200 — GitHub Actions 

What it validates: Workflow authoring, reusable workflows/actions, runners, secrets/env vars, enterprise Actions policies. 

Who it’s for: Devs/DevOps building CI/CD and platform workflows. 

Prepare / take the exam: GH200 Certification • GH200 Study guide 

GH300 — GitHub Copilot 

What it validates: Responsible AI, plans & features, privacy/exclusions, prompt engineering, testing with Copilot, and developer use cases. 

Who it’s for: Developers and tech leads operationalizing AI coding assistants. 

Prepare / take the exam: GH300 Certification • GH300 Study guide 

GH500 — GitHub Advanced Security (GHAS) 

What it validates: Secret scanning (incl. push protection), dependency management (Dependabot/Dependency Review), CodeQL, and GHAS governance. 

Who it’s for: Security engineers, platform teams, and senior developers. 

Prepare / take the exam: GH500 Certification • GH500 Study guide 

Certifications Summary 

 

Use cases you’ll recognize 

1) “We need an automation baseline across services” → GH200 (Actions) 

• Scenario: Multiservice app; teams run ad hoc scripts. 

• Win: Standardize CI on pull requests, add deployment gates, publish packages. 

• Outcome: Faster merges, repeatable releases, fewer outages. → Learn: GH200 Certification • GH200 Study guide 

Starter workflow (CI + package publish) 

2) “We’re all in on AI assistance, but we need guardrails” → GH300 (Copilot) 

• Scenario: Developers use Copilot inconsistently; privacy concerns. 

• Win: Train on prompt engineering, content exclusions, org policies, and test generation. 

• Outcome: Measurable productivity with Responsible AI practices. → GH300 Certification • GH300 Study guide

Sample prompt pattern: 

(Teach teams to review every suggestion and apply content exclusions at org level.) 

3) “Shift-left security without killing flow” → GH500 (GHAS) 

• Scenario: Security reviews late, secrets keep leaking. 

• Win: Enable code scanning, secret scanning (with push protection), Dependabot, and CodeQL in PR workflows. 

• Outcome: Fix in PRs, reduce risk and rework. → Learn: GH500 Certification • GH500 Study guide 

Starter CodeQL workflow:

Then turn on Secret Scanning + Push Protection and Dependabot alerts/updates in repo settings. 

4) “Platform admin needs to scale governance” → GH100 (Administration) 

• Scenario: Multiple orgs, compliance controls, SSO/SCIM rollout. 

• Win: Centralize policies (branch protection, audit logs), standardize Marketplace usage, set Actions policies and runners at scale. 

• Outcome: Predictable, auditable GitHub enterprise posture. → Learn: GH100 Certification • GH100 Study guide 

(Pair with audit logs & SAML/SCIM for identity and access control.) 

5) “New to GitHub, need a shared starting point” → GH900 (Foundations) 

• Scenario: New hires and cross-functional contributors need common Git/GitHub fluency. 

• Win: Git basics, issues/PRs, Projects, collaboration norms. 

• Outcome: Faster onboarding, better PR hygiene, less thrash. → Learn: GH900 Certification • GH900 Study guide 

Starter git commands:

Benefit overview (what teams actually see) 

Developers: Less boilerplate; faster PR cycles; Copilot-assisted tests; fewer post-merge surprises. 

DevOps/Platform: Reusable workflows; governed runners & policies; standardized release flows. 

Security: Realtime secret prevention, dependency health, CodeQL-powered code scanning integrated into PRs. 

Leads/PMO: Measurable skills, repeatable processes, and credentials tied to product capabilities. 

How to get started (cheat sheet) 

1. Pick your lane 

• Foundations → GH900 

• Admin → GH100 

• CI/CD → GH200 

• AI Dev → GH300 

• AppSec → GH500 

   2. Skim the study guide (know the domains & scenarios) → GH900, GH100, GH200, GH300, GH500. 

   3. Do a practice assessment (free) → Practice Assessments catalog 

   4. Use the learning paths (self-paced or ILT) → Training for GitHub on Microsoft Learn 

   5. Book the exam on Microsoft Learn (Pearson VUE; credentials show on your profile). 

One more thing: help your teams pass on the first try 

• Anchor on scenarios from the study guides (not just features). 

• Practice in your repos: wire up a demo repo with Actions + CodeQL + Dependabot and enable secret scanning/push protection. 

• Make AI responsible by default: set org level content exclusions and publish a Copilot usage guide. 

About the author 

JeanFrançois Bilodeau (J-F) is a developer and Microsoft Lead Technical Trainer with over 30 years of industry experience and wrote all five GitHub certification exams (GH900, GH100, GH200, GH300, GH500) and help

#SkilledByMTT #MSLearn #MTTBloggingGroup