What is the Ansible & Chef Associate Artisan exam?
The Ansible & Chef Associate Artisan exam - code A1-001 - is the associate-level automation certification in Bittnet Training's DevOps Artisan program, a six-exam track spanning automation, containers, and CI/CD. Pearson VUE, the program's official global administrator, defines it precisely: the exam validates foundational knowledge in infrastructure automation using Ansible and Chef, from creating and managing configuration playbooks and recipes to using variables, loops, and templates and automating deployment processes in DevOps environments. It is a 90-minute proctored sitting, bookable at a Pearson test center or online from home through OnVUE - both options verified for this exact exam in Pearson's live registration flow on 2026-10-07. Pearson's official voucher store prices the program's prepaid exam voucher at USD 180.
What does the A1-001 exam actually validate?
Pearson's definition names the working craft: configuration playbooks and recipes created and managed, variables, loops, and templates used fluently, and deployment processes automated inside real DevOps environments - across two tools, Ansible and Chef, not one. That two-tool shape is the exam's personality: most automation professionals live in a single configuration-management tool, and this certification asks for working literacy in both.
The vendor's dedicated three-day course - aligned to this certification, per Bittnet - shows the skill set in working order: installing and configuring Ansible and Chef; creating and running playbooks and recipes; variables, loops, conditionals, and templates; secrets and access with Ansible Vault and Chef Permissions; best practices for safe, efficient automation; and integration with Docker and Kubernetes for application orchestration. The audience the vendor names is wide on purpose - entry-level DevOps and cloud professionals, system administrators moving into infrastructure automation, backend developers automating delivery, automation engineers working with containers or cloud, and teams already running Ansible or Chef inside CI/CD.
The prerequisites stay practical: basic Linux systems administration, command-line and YAML familiarity, and minimal DevOps experience as an advantage rather than a requirement. Two honest signals about depth fall out of the outline. First, the security layer - Vault and Permissions - is inside the scope, not an elective. Second, the exam expects tool-native thinking: the declarative, converge-to-state way of working that playbooks and recipes embody, which is a real adjustment for candidates whose automation habit is imperative scripting.
What is the exact A1-001 exam format?
The published headline is the duration: 90 minutes, at associate level, per Pearson's program page. That is the only format fact either the vendor or Pearson publishes on a public page for this exam - there is no official public item count, no published passing score, and no public content-weight table. This guide deliberately quotes the 90 minutes and states the rest as not published, because the honest answer beats an invented one; treat any third-party site that states a question count or pass mark for A1-001 as unverified unless it points at a primary document.
What is published is the level boundary. The professional-tier companion - A2-001, Certified Ansible & Terraform Professional Artisan - validates advanced infrastructure-as-code and configuration-management skills: secure, reusable, scalable automation workflows and provisioning across cloud and on-premises infrastructure, at the same 90-minute duration. Associate is the two-tool foundation; professional is the architecture-grade IaC judgment built on it.
What does the exam cost, and what rules come with it?
Pearson's official voucher store lists one product for the whole program: the Devops Artisan by BITTNET 100% prepaid voucher at USD 180, with EUR 150, GBP 137, and JPY 18,440 for the matching redemption countries. The same voucher covers all six DevOps Artisan exams, and the registration checkout prices your sitting in your local currency. There is no published member tier, no bundle, and no surcharge for picking OnVUE over a test center.
The bundled alternative is the vendor's course route: Bittnet maps each certification to a dedicated three-day course and includes the certification voucher with it. The course is preparation, not a gate - Pearson's registration is open to anyone with a Pearson account, and the published prerequisites are experience: basic Linux system administration, YAML and command-line familiarity, and general infrastructure or DevOps exposure.
One rule shapes the long game: the professional-tier A2-001 requires an active A1-001 certification before Pearson opens scheduling - Bittnet's DevOps Hub states the gate in plain terms. A naming note for researchers: the associate course page recommends the professional tier under an older Ansible-and-Chef label, while the live catalog and the vendor hub name it Certified Ansible & Terraform Professional Artisan - the hub's naming is current. There is no published retake discount in this program; a new sitting registers at the same published voucher price.
Can you take the A1-001 exam online from home?
Yes - and the evidence is exam-specific, not program-level hand-waving. Pearson's live BITTNET registration flow lists A1-001 by name, and its delivery-models step presents both "In-person at a test center" and "Online with OnVUE" - opened and verified in a real browser on 2026-10-07. Underneath sits Pearson's dedicated DevOps Artisan OnVUE page with the full at-home rulebook.
The minimums are strict and mechanical: Windows 10 or macOS 14 or higher; a working webcam, microphone, and speaker with no headphones or headsets; one display screen only - multi-monitor setups are not permitted; at least 6 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up; and every application except OnVUE closed. The prohibited-technology list bars virtual machines, phones, tablets, smart devices, secondary or touchscreen displays, and VPNs, corporate networks, or public or shared networks - the home lab and work VPN that built your automation craft are exactly what fails the check. Pearson warns that failing the minimums on exam day can cancel the sitting and forfeit the fee, and the fix is boring: run the system test on the exact machine and network, restart, clear the desk, and be alone in the room.
How booking the A1-001 exam actually works
The flow runs entirely through Pearson. You create a Pearson VUE account - Pearson is the program's official global administrator - select the DevOps Artisan certification you want from the BITTNET catalog, and schedule the sitting, choosing your date and your delivery method: online with OnVUE or in person at a test center. The public exam list shows all six program exams side by side, so code-checking before payment takes seconds.
Two sequencing notes matter before you click. First, if the professional tier is the goal, the ladder is sequential: A2-001 scheduling requires the active A1-001 certification, so the associate result has to exist first. Second, if you take the OnVUE route, the environment pass happens before the appointment, not during it - the system test on the real machine and network, the single display, the closed applications, the ID that matches the registration name. Candidates who treat exam week as the time to discover a prohibited VPN learn the rule at the expensive moment.
Get the Ansible & Chef Sitting Handled
If the A1-001 sitting is the obstacle between you and the associate credential - the two-tool breadth, the declarative-automation mindset, the OnVUE room rules on an engineer's machine, or simply the calendar - Exam Assist handles the sitting end to end: exam-code confirmation against Pearson's live list, a delivery-route compliance check, scheduling coordination, and the proctored sitting itself. The service fee is due only after the agreed result posts. Send your automation background, your delivery preference, and your deadline for an honest feasibility answer.