Understand the foundations
Work through the domains. Open each concept, follow the examples, and notice the common traps.
Explore the domains ↗ THE LEARNING LIBRARY
Your Claude Architect
study guide.
Big ideas, made approachable. Prepare for Claude Certified Architect – Foundations with a clear path through every domain, practical scenarios, and room to learn at your pace.
✓ Completely free✓ No account needed✓ Built for understanding
THE EXAM BLUEPRINTFOUNDATIONS
A LITTLE STRUCTURE GOES A LONG WAY
Find your rhythm. Build your confidence.
A simple study path for your CCA-F preparation.
Connect the concepts
Apply what you’ve learned to support agents, research systems, coding workflows, and more.
Work through a scenario ↗Practice, then reflect
Take a mock exam, review the explanations, and return to the topics that need another look.
Try a practice exam ↗YOUR CURRICULUMFive domains.
Five domains.
One connected understanding.
Explore the Claude certification exam topics, organized by domain.
5 domains
017 TASK STATEMENTSAgentic Architecture & Orchestration
27%of exam
Agentic Architecture & Orchestration
The largest domain. Covers the agentic loop, multi-agent coordinator/subagent patterns, subagent spawning and context passing, enforcement vs. prompt-based guidance, hooks, task decomposition, and session/resume/fork management.
- 1.1Design and implement agentic loops for autonomous task execution
- 1.2Orchestrate multi-agent systems with coordinator–subagent patterns
- 1.3Configure subagent invocation, context passing, and spawning
- 1.4Implement multi-step workflows with enforcement and handoff patterns
- 1.5Apply Agent SDK hooks for tool call interception and data normalization
- 1.6Design task decomposition strategies for complex workflows
- 1.7Manage session state, resumption, and forking
025 TASK STATEMENTSTool Design & MCP Integration
18%of exam
Tool Design & MCP Integration
How to design tool interfaces, structured errors, tool distribution and `tool_choice`, MCP server configuration/scoping, and effective use of built-in tools (Read/Write/Edit/Bash/Grep/Glob).
- 2.1Design effective tool interfaces with clear descriptions and boundaries
- 2.2Implement structured error responses for MCP tools
- 2.3Distribute tools appropriately across agents and configure tool choice
- 2.4Integrate MCP servers into Claude Code and agent workflows
- 2.5Select and apply built-in tools (Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Grep, Glob)
036 TASK STATEMENTSClaude Code Configuration & Workflows
20%of exam
Claude Code Configuration & Workflows
CLAUDE.md hierarchy and modular organization, custom slash commands and skills, path-specific rules, plan mode vs direct execution, iterative refinement, and CI/CD integration.
- 3.1Configure CLAUDE.md files with hierarchy, scoping, and modular organization
- 3.2Create and configure custom slash commands and skills
- 3.3Apply path-specific rules for conditional convention loading
- 3.4Determine when to use plan mode vs direct execution
- 3.5Apply iterative refinement techniques for progressive improvement
- 3.6Integrate Claude Code into CI/CD pipelines
046 TASK STATEMENTSPrompt Engineering & Structured Output
20%of exam
Prompt Engineering & Structured Output
Explicit criteria to cut false positives, few-shot prompting, structured output via tool_use + JSON schemas, validation/retry/feedback loops, batch processing strategy, and multi-instance/multi-pass review.
- 4.1Design prompts with explicit criteria to improve precision and reduce false positives
- 4.2Apply few-shot prompting to improve output consistency and quality
- 4.3Enforce structured output using tool use and JSON schemas
- 4.4Implement validation, retry, and feedback loops for extraction quality
- 4.5Design efficient batch processing strategies
- 4.6Design multi-instance and multi-pass review architectures
056 TASK STATEMENTSContext Management & Reliability
15%of exam
Context Management & Reliability
Preserving critical info across long interactions, escalation/ambiguity resolution, error propagation across agents, large-codebase context management, human review + confidence calibration, and provenance in multi-source synthesis.
- 5.1Manage conversation context to preserve critical information across long interactions
- 5.2Design effective escalation and ambiguity resolution patterns
- 5.3Implement error propagation strategies across multi-agent systems
- 5.4Manage context effectively in large codebase exploration
- 5.5Design human review workflows and confidence calibration
- 5.6Preserve information provenance and handle uncertainty in multi-source synthesis
Open a domain to preview its topics, or jump straight into a lesson.
WHERE THE IDEAS COME TOGETHER
READ · REASON · PRACTICEThink through the real-world decisions.
Six practical scenarios to connect architecture, tools, and reliability.
01↗02↗03↗04↗05↗06↗
Customer Support Resolution Agent
A resolution agent (Claude Agent SDK) handling high-ambiguity requests — returns, billing disputes, account issues — via custom MCP tools (get_customer, lookup_order, process_refund, escalate_to_human). Target: 80%+ first-contact resolution while knowing when to escalate.
Code Generation with Claude Code
Using Claude Code for code generation, refactoring, debugging, and documentation — integrated via custom slash commands and CLAUDE.md, choosing plan mode vs direct execution.
Multi-Agent Research System
A coordinator delegates to specialized subagents (web search, document analysis, synthesis, report generation) to produce comprehensive, cited reports.
Developer Productivity with Claude
An agent that helps engineers explore unfamiliar codebases, understand legacy systems, generate boilerplate, and automate repetitive tasks using built-in tools (Read, Write, Bash, Grep, Glob) and MCP servers.
Claude Code for Continuous Integration
Integrating Claude Code into CI/CD for automated code review, test generation, and PR feedback — with prompts that give actionable feedback and minimize false positives.
Structured Data Extraction
Extracting information from unstructured documents, validating with JSON schemas, maintaining high accuracy, handling edge cases gracefully, and integrating with downstream systems.
LESS SEARCHING. MORE UNDERSTANDING.
Your everyday study toolkit.
Keep the details close. Come back whenever you need them.
QUICK REVISION
Certification cheat sheet↗
The essential ideas, distilled into notes you can revisit before practice.
COMMANDS & FLAGSClaude Code CLI↗
Find the command you need, understand the flags, and keep moving.
CONFIGURATIONSettings & permissions↗
Make sense of settings.json, configuration scopes, and permission rules.
BUILD WITH CLAUDEAgent SDK reference↗
Annotated tools, hooks, sessions, and subagent configuration.
FOUR LANGUAGESThe technical glossary↗
English notes with Urdu, Hindi, and French meanings for unfamiliar terms.
A NOTE ON THIS GUIDELearn the reasoning.
Learn the reasoning.
Carry it into your work.
CCAF Guide is a free, independent study companion for Claude Certified Architect – Foundations, often searched for as CCA-F or CCAF. The material is organized around five domains and six practice scenarios, with explanations to help you understand architectural choices.
Practice scores reflect your performance on this question bank; they are not an official scaled exam score or a guarantee of passing.
Our study approach & official references ↗