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Claude Architect

Claude Certified Architect: Foundations

An independent study guide for the CCAR-F exam blueprint: agentic architecture, tool and MCP design, Claude Code configuration, prompt engineering for structured output, and context management. Written from scratch and not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Anthropic. It reproduces no exam questions.

6 modules · 8 hr 54 min of reading

4 of 34 lessons are open to read without an account, and a free account opens the other 30. Creating one costs nothing: there is no paid plan, no tier and nothing to buy.

Start readingHow this is checked
lessons
34
flashcards
165
quiz questions
132
practice questions
420

Practice exam

A sitting is 60 questions in 2 hr, reported on the 100 to 1000 scale the programme publishes, with 720 to pass.

  • Drawn fresh from a pool of 420, allocated across the domains by the weights below
  • Worked through unseen questions first, so a second sitting is a different paper
  • Feedback held back until you submit, then every option explained and the score split by domain
Agentic Architecture and Orchestration
27 per cent of the paper
Tool Design and MCP Integration
18 per cent of the paper
Claude Code Configuration and Workflows
20 per cent of the paper
Prompt Engineering and Structured Output
20 per cent of the paper
Context Management and Reliability
15 per cent of the paper

The weights are the published blueprint's. The questions are not: all 420 were written here from the published objectives, and none of them is a real exam question.

Course outline

  1. Module 1

    Open to read

    Orientation: what CCAR-F measures

    What the Claude Certified Architect Foundations exam is, the blueprint it is built on, the six production scenarios it frames questions inside, and how to prepare. Read this first: it also sets out what this guide is and is not.

    4 lessons · 54 min

    Before you start

    • What the CCAR-F exam measures
    • The six production scenarios
    • How to prepare by building
    • What this guide is sure about

  2. Module 2

    Free account

    Domain 1: Agentic architecture and orchestration

    The largest domain at 27%. Agentic loops driven by stop_reason, coordinator and subagent systems, context passing, programmatic enforcement, hooks, task decomposition, and session lifecycle.

    7 lessons · 1 hr 53 min

    Loops and orchestration

    • The agentic loop
    • Coordinators and subagents
    • Invoking subagents and passing context

    Control and decomposition

    • Enforcement and handoffs
    • Hooks for interception and normalisation
    • Task decomposition strategies
    • Sessions: resume and fork

  3. Module 3

    Free account

    Domain 2: Tool design and MCP integration

    18% of the exam. Tool descriptions as the selection mechanism, structured error responses, distributing tools across agents, tool_choice, MCP server scoping, and the built-in tools.

    5 lessons · 1 hr 18 min

    Designing tool interfaces

    • Writing tool descriptions that make selection reliable
    • Structured error responses for MCP tools
    • Distributing tools across agents and configuring tool choice

    MCP and built-in tools

    • Integrating MCP servers at the right scope
    • Selecting and applying the built-in tools

  4. Module 4

    Free account

    Domain 3: Claude Code configuration and workflows

    20% of the exam. The CLAUDE.md hierarchy, slash commands and skills, path-scoped rules, plan mode versus direct execution, iterative refinement, and non-interactive use in CI.

    6 lessons · 1 hr 36 min

    Configuring the workspace

    • The CLAUDE.md hierarchy and what teammates actually get
    • Skills and slash commands as shared procedure
    • Path-scoped rules for conventions that follow a file type

    Working and shipping

    • Plan mode versus direct execution
    • Iterative refinement that converges
    • Claude Code in a pipeline

  5. Module 5

    Free account

    Domain 4: Prompt engineering and structured output

    20% of the exam. Explicit criteria over vague instruction, few-shot examples, tool use with JSON schemas for guaranteed structure, validation and retry, batch processing, and multi-pass review.

    6 lessons · 1 hr 36 min

    Getting the output you asked for

    • Explicit criteria, not quality adjectives
    • Few-shot examples for the cases rules cannot settle

    Structure, validation and scale

    • Structured output with tools and JSON schemas
    • Validation, retry and knowing when retrying cannot help
    • Batch processing and the latency it costs you
    • Multi-instance and multi-pass review

  6. Module 6

    Free account

    Domain 5: Context management and reliability

    15% of the exam. Preserving facts across long conversations, escalation and ambiguity, error propagation between agents, exploring large codebases, human review and confidence calibration, and provenance in synthesis.

    6 lessons · 1 hr 37 min

    Holding on to what matters

    • Keeping the facts a long conversation depends on
    • Exploring a large codebase without losing the map

    Failing well

    • Escalation triggers that hold up, and two that do not
    • Errors a coordinator can actually act on
    • Designing review around calibrated confidence
    • Provenance that survives synthesis

Where this course comes from

Independent study guide. Structure follows the publicly published CCAR-F exam blueprint; all explanations, examples and practice questions are our own.

Start with the orientation module

It reads with no account at all, and it sets out what the exam measures, how to prepare for it, and what this guide is and is not sure about.

Start readingAll courses

4 of 34 lessons are open to read without an account, and a free account opens the other 30. There is no paid plan, no tier and nothing to buy.