Microsoft/Azure refresh started — October 28, 2026¶
Continuation: The first detailed batch reconciles AB-730, AB-900 and AI-200 against current English outlines. The monitoring table and hash ledger below describe the initial repair wave, before those later edits.
Added the repository subagent instructions and the coordinator/research/reviewer workflow, then began a targeted refresh of 55 Microsoft guides, including five Office Specialist guides. GitHub remains a separate vendor. Three fresh-context research agents returned exam/lifecycle, technical and learning-resource evidence; the coordinator applied shared edits. A separate fresh-context reviewer checked the resulting diff and evidence; all seven reported findings were repaired and rechecked.
This is a monitoring/lifecycle pass and an initial repair wave, not 55 completed deep reviews. No new complete deep-review receipt, human review, tenant test, device execution or live lab result is claimed. The per-guide evidence ledger records observed pages, exact guide/objective hashes, source decisions and limits.
Collected scope and current findings¶
- Official objective monitor: 55 checked; 26 changed page/status observations, 29 unchanged, 20 with objective-text differences; zero extraction errors.
- Researcher opened all 55 blueprint/credential identities in packets of no more than ten. Unchanged extraction is not technical validation: AI-500's beta label disappeared outside the monitored objective section.
- Catalog discovery: 77 credential listings; four new listing signals, one missing listing signal and five changed listing records. These need identity review; missing catalog membership is not proof of retirement.
- The sequential scoped collector checked 2,520 registered sources from its captured pre-repair catalog: 2,408 reachable, 109 access-blocked, three missing/error, with 115 metadata-change flags. There were zero collection errors. Twelve newly registered resources were checked separately: 12 HTTP 200. A successful response establishes reachability, not correct teaching or live execution.
Applied initial repairs¶
- AZ-800/AZ-801: official study guides explicitly confirm September 30 retirement. Catalogs now mark both retired; guides preserve historical technical material and point to AZ-802. Courseware and exam transitions remain separate. SSH Direct and Conditional Access evidence gaps are retained.
- PL-400: registration closed October 16, while previously registered candidates may still test through October 30. AB-400 is available for new registrations; this repository's PL-400 guide is not a completed AB-400 guide. Added the exact successor course as adjacent training with a published three-day duration.
- AI-500: recorded active on current exam/credential headings and catalog evidence that omit beta; no exact GA date invented. The English four-day course is now linked by the exam page, while the credential collection remains inconsistent. Added a bounded optional Microsoft agent-course route; class delivery is unverified.
- DP-420: credential page confirms the October 6 name/level change to Azure Cosmos DB AI Developer Associate. The former credential name remains an alias. Current exam title is Building AI Applications with Azure Cosmos DB; filename stays stable.
- AB-100/MS-721: November 16 and October 29 outlines respectively are future on October 28. Added dated review tasks and explicit warnings; accepted snapshots remain intact. AB-100's earlier October 14 statements are historical, and its prerequisite conflict remains unresolved.
- AI-200/SC-300: current official pages disagree internally on a domain weight. Both conflicts are visible; no unsupported weight was selected.
- Product notes: bounded Backup approval/logging, Cowork access, Windows/NTLM hardening, Server recovery, Azure item-level recovery, Content Safety, Intune baseline and harness updates have adjacent exact citations. They do not silently expand exam scope or establish deployment success.
- Learning routes: promoted three new exact course/lab resources and reused existing course/repository entries. AB-650's direct course page currently says November 13, while indexed October 30 wording conflicts. The MD-102 foundation lab publishes 90 minutes plus environment setup and does not provide a free tenant.
- Assessment and timeline consistency: AB-210 and AI-200 official pages now advertise Practice Assessments through AI Skills Navigator/sign-in. Historical unavailability observations are dated; no assessment was opened. DP-420's October 6 and DP-750/DP-800's October 19 dates have passed, while their accepted teaching baselines still await reconciliation. Retired Windows Server booking advice and the September Intune watch are explicitly historical.
Twenty objective-different guides carry a dated review-required notice. Six guides with new source coverage have explicit blocked source-gate records pending complete reconciliation. Their source-check observation date is October 28; historical full deep-review dates remain unchanged. No accepted objective snapshot was replaced.
Research-only discovery inventory¶
Canonical identity checks added AB-400 (active), AZ-401 (beta), AB-330 (beta), and MO-240 (active on current scheduling/page evidence) to the research inventory. They have no newly published guides. AZ-401's credential page repeats unrelated AB-100 domain text; use its dedicated exam/blueprint for scope. AB-330's existence does not establish MB-330 retirement or prerequisite equivalence. MO-240 is a distinct operational-management MOS credential; no replacement of MO-210/MO-211 is inferred.
The remaining new listing is GitHub GH-700 beta, even though it appears in Microsoft's delivery catalog. It stays in candidate intake outside this guide scope: its beta paragraph and assessment link contain credential-template conflicts. No assessment content was opened. Missing Windows Server catalog membership does not establish AZ-802 retirement; current canonical pages remain the evidence source.
The two HTTP 404 observations are an old CentOS RPM package evidence URL and the Pluralsight PL-900 path. The Skilling-Hub AI-103 resource failed DNS resolution. These are retained source-review tasks, not invented replacement URLs. Access blocks are recorded separately and do not mean 109 links are missing. Trusted historical health rows were not mass-replaced with unreviewed redirects or flags.
Coverage and remaining work¶
The first research packet is AZ-800, AZ-801, MS-102, AB-210, AB-650, AI-500, PL-400, AB-100, AB-900 and MD-102. The table below is a monitoring/triage ledger, not a list of completed guide reviews. Next work is detailed objective-by-objective reconciliation in small packets, followed by the remaining product/source review. Keep future English outlines distinct from currently effective and localized scope.
| Exam | Objective/page monitor | Catalog status after repair | Remaining work |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI-103 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| AB-100 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| AZ-900 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| DP-900 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| PL-900 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| SC-900 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| AB-900 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| AI-901 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| AZ-104 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| AZ-305 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| AZ-700 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| AZ-120 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| AZ-140 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| AZ-400 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| AZ-800 | changed | retired | Archived; historical gaps retained |
| AZ-801 | changed | retired | Archived; historical gaps retained |
| AZ-802 | changed | active | Full technical review due |
| DP-300 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| DP-420 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| DP-750 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| DP-600 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| DP-800 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| AI-200 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| AI-300 | changed | active | Full technical review due |
| AI-500 | unchanged | active | Targeted repair; full review due |
| AB-620 | changed | active | Full technical review due |
| SC-100 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| SC-200 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| SC-300 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| SC-500 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| SC-401 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| MS-102 | unchanged | changing | Targeted repair; full review due |
| AB-650 | unchanged | beta | Targeted repair; full review due |
| MD-102 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| MS-700 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| MS-721 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| DP-700 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| PL-300 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| PL-400 | changed | changing | Objective reconciliation required |
| AB-410 | changed | active | Full technical review due |
| AB-730 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| AB-731 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| AB-210 | unchanged | beta | Targeted repair; full review due |
| AB-250 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| MB-230 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| MB-310 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| MB-330 | changed | active | Objective reconciliation required |
| MB-500 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| MB-800 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| MB-820 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| MO-110 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| MO-210 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| MO-310 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| MO-111 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
| MO-211 | unchanged | active | Full technical review due |
Evidence and validation limits¶
The live collector and agent scratch artifacts are under
.maintenance/2026-10-28-microsoft-refresh/; the public JSON ledger preserves the
bounded evidence needed for continuation. Captured monitor inventories describe
the start of collection. Later repairs add sources and change metadata, so a
matching captured inventory is not a claim that every post-repair baseline is clean.
Source-quality decisions, unresolved contradictions, unavailable execution and blocked guide validation remain explicit. Source/body inspections used public pages; no authenticated courses, practice assessments or recalled exam content were accessed. The separate reviewer inspected the first ten-guide packet and the other sixteen changed headers/notices, checked all 55 final guide/objective hash bindings, and independently opened primary sources for the bounded changes. Four medium and three low findings were repaired and verified; no findings remain open within that inspected scope. This is not a full independent semantic audit.
All 193 unit tests and repository validation passed. The reviewer independently ran the 42-test validator module. A strict site build also passed during the initial repair wave; final build and generated-site checks use the assembled work. The evidence ledger retains the review scope, findings, dispositions and limits.