cca-foundations — ~/study-guide — zsh

~/cca cat README

# unofficial community study guide

Claude Certified Architect
— Foundations

A free, open-source guide to Anthropic's technical certification for solution architects (exam code CCAR-F). All five exam domains, with code examples, anti-patterns, decision frameworks, and practice questions.

~/cca ./start --help

exam --stats

60scenario-based questions
720/1000to pass
4/6scenarios per exam
5knowledge domains

# Aimed at solution architects with 6+ months building on Claude APIs, the Agent SDK, Claude Code, and MCP. One of four Claude certifications (Associate, Architect Foundations, Architect Professional, Developer). Proctored via Pearson VUE, registered through the Anthropic Partner Academy; $125 per attempt, certification valid 12 months (Exam Guide v1.0, July 2026). Access via the Claude Partner Network.

ls domains/

  • 27%

    d1 · Agentic Architecture & Orchestration

    Agentic loops, stop_reason, hub-and-spoke multi-agent systems, hooks, task decomposition, session management.

    open →
  • 18%

    d2 · Tool Design & MCP Integration

    Tool interface design, structured errors, the 4–5 tool maximum, tool_choice, MCP servers and transports.

    open →
  • 20%

    d3 · Claude Code Configuration & Workflows

    CLAUDE.md hierarchy, skills & slash commands, path-specific rules, plan mode, CI/CD integration.

    open →
  • 20%

    d4 · Prompt Engineering & Structured Output

    Explicit criteria, few-shot prompting, tool_use & JSON schemas, validation-retry loops, multi-pass review.

    open →
  • 15%

    d5 · Context Management & Reliability

    Context windows, escalation patterns, error propagation, large-codebase strategies, human review, provenance.

    open →

ls ../certs/

# Studying a different Claude certification? Overview guides for the other three (from the official v1.0 exam guides): Associate (CCAO-F) · Developer (CCDV-F) · Architect Professional (CCAR-P)

tree --inside

├─ 10 critical anti-patterns

The wrong answers that show up on the exam — and why they're wrong.

├─ decision frameworks

Programmatic vs. prompt-based enforcement, plan vs. direct, batch vs. sync, and more.

├─ practice questions

Scenario-based questions with explained answers across every domain.

└─ 4-week study plan

A daily schedule from core architecture through exam-prep drills.

~/cca ./start

Start studying.

Read it online, grab the PDF, or clone the repo and study offline.