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Claude Certified Architect practice questions

245 free, original practice questions across the five exam domains and six scenarios. Each one has its own page with the answer and a short explanation. These are written for study and are not the official exam questions.

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Domain: Agentic Architecture & Orchestration

  1. In an agentic loop, what should determine whether your code runs another tool or presents the final answer?
  2. A coordinator delegates to a synthesis subagent but it ignores the earlier web-search findings. What's the most likely cause?
  3. You need refunds to be impossible to process before a customer's identity is verified. Which approach gives a guarantee?
  4. How do you spawn multiple subagents to run in parallel?
  5. A research report covers only visual arts and misses music, writing, and film — yet every subagent completed successfully. Where is the root cause?
  6. A developer worked in a Claude Code session named billing-refactor yesterday and wants to continue exactly where they left off today. What should they use?
  7. You've executed the tools Claude requested and appended their results to the message history. What must the loop do next?
  8. A loop stops as soon as any tool returns an empty string. Why is that wrong?
  9. A response comes back with stop_reason: "max_tokens". What does it mean?
  10. Which statement best describes model-driven decision-making in an agentic loop?
  11. Where does a maximum-iteration cap belong in a well-designed agentic loop?
  12. In a hub-and-spoke multi-agent system, why route all subagent communication through the coordinator?
  13. A synthesis subagent returns a report missing whole subtopics, yet every subagent completed successfully. Where do you look first?
  14. In a dynamic multi-agent system, what does the coordinator decide?
  15. To minimize duplicated work across research subagents, you should…
  16. A coordinator never spawns any subagents. What is the most likely cause?
  17. How do you make three subagents run in parallel?
  18. Why pass web-search results to a synthesis subagent using a structured format that separates content from metadata (URLs, page numbers)?
  19. How should a synthesis subagent obtain the earlier web-search findings?
  20. A coordinator prompt spells out exact step-by-step procedures for a research subagent. What is the downside?
  21. Refunds must be impossible before a customer's identity is verified. Which approach guarantees it?
  22. Why are prompt instructions insufficient for deterministic compliance such as identity-before-refund?
  23. When escalating mid-process to a human who lacks the transcript, a good structured handoff includes…
  24. A single customer message raises three distinct issues. The best pattern is to…
  25. Which hook type intercepts tool RESULTS to transform them before the model processes them?
  26. You must guarantee refunds over $500 are blocked. What is the right mechanism?
  27. MCP tools return timestamps as Unix, ISO 8601, and numeric codes. How do you normalize them for the model?
  28. A large code review suffers from attention dilution. What actually helps?
  29. When is fixed prompt chaining preferable to dynamic decomposition?
  30. How should you decompose an open-ended investigation of an unfamiliar codebase?
  31. A developer wants to continue a specific named session billing-refactor from yesterday. Which command?
  32. You want to compare two testing strategies starting from the same codebase analysis. What do you use?
  33. You resume a session, but files it previously analyzed were modified since. What is the reliable move?
  34. A coordinator is supposed to delegate research to subagents, but no delegation ever happens and there are no errors. What should you check FIRST?
  35. Three research subagents each fetch many of the same sources, wasting cost. What's the fix?
  36. After one synthesis pass, the report is missing a whole subtopic. What does an iterative-refinement coordinator do?
  37. A policy states refunds over $500 must ALWAYS route to a human. Which mechanism guarantees it?
  38. You want to compare two refactoring strategies from the SAME expensive codebase analysis, without one contaminating the other. Best tool?

Domain: Tool Design & MCP Integration

  1. Two similar tools (get_customer, lookup_order) misroute because both have one-line descriptions. What's the most effective FIRST step?
  2. An MCP tool times out. What error response best enables the agent to recover intelligently?
  3. A customer lookup returns zero matching orders. How should this be reported?
  4. What does tool_choice: 'any' guarantee?
  5. Where should a team-shared MCP server (with a token) be configured, and how should the token be referenced?
  6. An Edit fails because the anchor text appears in several places. What's the reliable fallback?
  7. An agent keeps confusing analyze_content and analyze_document. What is the first fix?
  8. What makes a tool description effective as a selection signal?
  9. Despite good descriptions, a keyword is pulling the agent toward the wrong tool. What do you check?
  10. The best remedy for an overly generic analyze_content tool that actually handles web results is to…
  11. Which MCP flag communicates that a tool call failed?
  12. A tool returns a generic "Operation failed" for every problem. Why is that bad?
  13. A customer lookup succeeds but finds zero matches. How should the tool represent this?
  14. For a business-rule violation (e.g., a refund the policy forbids), the tool response should include…
  15. An agent has 18 tools and misroutes frequently. What is a likely cause?
  16. A synthesis agent keeps trying to run web searches. What is the best fix?
  17. 85% of a synthesis agent's needs are simple fact checks; 15% are complex. What is the best design?
  18. Which tool_choice setting guarantees the model calls SOME tool rather than returning text?
  19. You must ensure extract_metadata runs before any enrichment step. Which tool_choice do you use?
  20. Where do you configure a shared MCP server so the whole team gets it via version control?
  21. How do you keep a GitHub token out of a committed .mcp.json?
  22. What is the difference between MCP resources and MCP tools?
  23. You need to find every caller of a function across the codebase. Which built-in tool?
  24. An Edit call fails because the target text isn't unique. What is the reliable fallback?
  25. Two tools, analyze_content and analyze_document, are frequently confused by the model. What's the FIRST fix?
  26. An MCP tool fails because a refund exceeds the policy limit. What should the structured error include so the agent behaves correctly?
  27. A synthesis agent keeps wandering off to run web searches instead of synthesizing. Best fix?
  28. A teammate reports they don't have an MCP server you rely on daily. Most likely reason?
  29. You must find every caller of a function that a module re-exports under several aliases. Reliable approach?

Domain: Claude Code Configuration & Workflows

  1. You want a /review slash command available to every developer automatically on clone/pull. Where does it belong?
  2. Test files are spread throughout the codebase and must all follow the same conventions regardless of location. What's the most maintainable mechanism?
  3. A task requires restructuring a monolith into microservices across dozens of files with several viable designs. Which approach fits?
  4. A new teammate isn't receiving a coding instruction that works for you. What's the likely cause?
  5. Your CI job running claude "Analyze this PR" hangs waiting for input. What's the correct fix?
  6. Why use context: fork in a skill's SKILL.md frontmatter?
  7. A teammate isn't getting an instruction that others have. What is the most likely cause?
  8. Which keeps a large CLAUDE.md modular?
  9. What is the .claude/rules/ directory used for?
  10. Which command shows which memory files are currently loaded?
  11. You want a slash command available to every developer on clone/pull. Where does it go?
  12. A skill produces verbose codebase-analysis output you don't want polluting the main chat. Which frontmatter setting helps?
  13. Which skill frontmatter field restricts what the skill can do (e.g., limit it to file writes)?
  14. When should you use a skill rather than CLAUDE.md?
  15. A convention must apply to all test files spread across many directories. What is the best mechanism?
  16. What is the benefit of path-scoped rules that load only on matching files?
  17. You have Terraform conventions. How do you scope a rule so it loads only when editing Terraform?
  18. Which task best fits plan mode?
  19. Which is a good use of the Explore subagent?
  20. Direct execution (not plan mode) is appropriate for…
  21. Descriptions are being interpreted inconsistently. What improves reliability most?
  22. In iterative refinement, what does the interview pattern mean?
  23. You have several interacting problems plus some independent ones. What is the best approach?
  24. A Claude Code CI job hangs waiting for input. What fixes it?
  25. How do you get machine-parseable structured findings from Claude Code in CI?
  26. For reviewing generated code in CI, which is more reliable?
  27. A convention must apply to every test file, but they're scattered across many feature folders. Best mechanism?
  28. A slash command should be available to every developer the moment they clone the repo. Where does it belong?
  29. You want a codebase-analysis skill's verbose output to stay OUT of the main conversation. What frontmatter helps?
  30. The task is to migrate 45 files across service boundaries with several viable approaches. Which mode fits?
  31. In CI, a Claude Code job hangs forever waiting on input. What's the documented fix?

Domain: Prompt Engineering & Structured Output

  1. A code-review prompt produces too many false positives. Which change most improves precision?
  2. You use tool_use with a strict JSON schema for extraction. What does this NOT protect against?
  3. Source documents sometimes lack a 'tax_id' field. How should the schema treat it to avoid fabrication?
  4. Which workload is a good fit for the Message Batches API?
  5. You want the most reliable review of freshly generated code. What's best?
  6. To reduce false positives in a code-comment checker, which works?
  7. Why do "only report high-confidence findings" instructions fail to improve precision?
  8. One category has a very high false-positive rate, eroding trust in the accurate categories. A reasonable interim step is to…
  9. Detailed instructions alone give inconsistent output on ambiguous cases. What is the most effective technique?
  10. What should a good few-shot example show for an ambiguous case?
  11. Beyond consistency, few-shot examples also help extraction by…
  12. What is the most reliable way to get schema-compliant JSON output?
  13. A strict JSON schema validates the output. Does that guarantee correctness?
  14. A source document sometimes lacks a field, but your schema marks it required. What happens, and what's the fix?
  15. The document type is unknown among several possible schemas. Which tool_choice guarantees structured output?
  16. Retry-with-error-feedback works well for which kind of errors?
  17. The data simply isn't present in the document you provided. Are retries useful?
  18. To detect a stated total that doesn't match the line items, you should…
  19. The Message Batches API offers…
  20. Why should you never put a blocking pre-merge check on the Batch API?
  21. What correlates a batch request with its response?
  22. Some documents in a batch failed. What is the efficient recovery?
  23. Which produces the best code review?
  24. Why is self-review by the generating model weaker?
  25. To avoid attention dilution and contradictions when reviewing a large PR, use…
  26. A code-review agent produces many false positives. Which change actually improves precision?
  27. You use tool_use with a strict JSON schema, yet get invoices whose line items don't sum to the total. Why?
  28. An extraction marks a field required, but some documents genuinely lack it, and the model keeps inventing values. Fix?
  29. A validation loop keeps retrying an extraction, but the needed value simply isn't in the source document. What should happen?
  30. You must run a blocking pre-merge check that a developer waits on. Which API is appropriate?

Domain: Context Management & Reliability

  1. In a long support conversation, exact figures like a $49.99 refund keep getting blurred into 'the customer wanted a refund'. What's the fix?
  2. Which is a RELIABLE trigger to escalate to a human?
  3. A customer lookup returns several possible matches. What should the agent do?
  4. A search subagent times out. Which propagation strategy enables the best coordinator recovery?
  5. An extraction pipeline reports 97% overall accuracy. Before automating high-confidence extractions, what's essential?
  6. Two credible sources report different growth figures (40% vs 28%). How should synthesis handle it?
  7. Progressive summarization threatens which information most?
  8. How do you keep transactional facts (order IDs, amounts, statuses) safe across a long session?
  9. Given the "lost in the middle" effect, where should the most important summary go in a long input?
  10. Which is a valid escalation trigger?
  11. A lookup returns multiple customer matches. What should the agent do?
  12. A subagent's web search times out. What is the right response?
  13. Why are generic statuses like "search unavailable" harmful for coordinator recovery?
  14. A subagent hits a transient failure it can retry locally. What should it propagate to the coordinator?
  15. In a long codebase-exploration session, the model starts citing "typical patterns" instead of the specific classes it found earlier. This indicates…
  16. Which technique preserves key findings across context boundaries during large-codebase work?
  17. A pipeline reports 97% aggregate extraction accuracy. Why not automate on that number alone?
  18. How do you decide which extractions need human review?
  19. Two credible sources report conflicting statistics. What should synthesis do?
  20. Conflicting figures across sources might actually reflect…
  21. How is source attribution best preserved through synthesis?
  22. Over a long support chat, exact amounts and dates risk being blurred by progressive summarization. Best safeguard?
  23. A calm customer explicitly asks to speak to a human. What should the agent do?
  24. A research subagent's search times out. What's the correct behavior?
  25. During long codebase exploration, the agent starts citing 'typical patterns' instead of the specific classes it found earlier. What does this signal, and what helps?
  26. Two credible sources report different growth figures (40% vs 28%). How should synthesis handle it?

Scenario: Customer Support Resolution Agent

  1. The agent occasionally refunds the wrong account because it skips identity verification. Best fix?
  2. One message contains three separate issues. What prevents the agent from resolving only the first and closing the ticket?
  3. The agent escalates easy cases but tries to handle hard policy-exception cases itself. Best first improvement?
  4. A refund request exceeds the $500 self-service limit. What guarantees policy compliance?
  5. get_customer and lookup_order keep getting misrouted because their descriptions are minimal. What's the FIRST step?
  6. A customer's name matches multiple accounts. What should the agent do?
  7. A customer explicitly asks to speak to a human. Best behavior?
  8. The policy is silent on a competitor price-match request. What's the right move?
  9. An order lookup returns 40+ fields but only ~5 are relevant to the return. What should happen?
  10. Over a long conversation, exact refund amounts and dates start getting blurred as history is summarized. Best safeguard?
  11. You escalate to a human agent who cannot see the transcript. What should the handoff contain?
  12. Someone proposes having the agent self-rate confidence and escalate below a threshold. Why is that a weak escalation signal?
  13. lookup_order returns 'no orders found' for a verified customer. How should the agent treat this?
  14. A call to lookup_order fails with a timeout. What error handling lets the agent recover intelligently?
  15. Why is 'strengthen the system prompt to always verify identity' insufficient for the refund-account problem?

Scenario: Code Generation with Claude Code

  1. Where do you put a code-review slash command so every developer gets it on pull?
  2. Different areas have different conventions and tests are scattered everywhere. Most maintainable way to auto-apply the right conventions?
  3. For a single-file bug fix with a clear stack trace, which mode is appropriate?
  4. A single-pass review of a 14-file PR gives inconsistent, contradictory feedback. Best restructuring?
  5. You're restructuring a monolith into microservices — dozens of files, service boundaries, and multiple valid approaches. Which mode?
  6. The requirements already state the change spans dozens of files and service boundaries. Is 'start direct, switch to plan mode later' a good approach?
  7. Where does a personal, experimental slash command belong so it doesn't affect teammates?
  8. Different areas have different conventions and test files are scattered across many directories. What auto-applies the right conventions?
  9. A teammate reports the agent ignores an instruction that works fine on your machine. Most likely cause?
  10. During a long session, context is filling up with verbose discovery output. Which combination helps most?
  11. An Edit fails because its anchor text appears in several places in the file. Best recovery?
  12. A /review command should reach every developer automatically on clone/pull. Where does it go?
  13. A single-file bug fix with a clear stack trace lands on your desk. Which mode?
  14. Your root CLAUDE.md has grown huge. Which keeps it modular without losing standards?
  15. Behavior differs between two of your sessions and you can't tell why. Fastest diagnostic?

Scenario: Multi-Agent Research System

  1. Reports miss whole subtopics though all subagents succeeded. Where do you fix it?
  2. 85% of the synthesis agent's verifications are simple fact-checks; 15% need deep investigation. Best way to cut round-trip latency?
  3. How should findings be structured so citations survive synthesis?
  4. Which is required for a coordinator to spawn subagents in parallel?
  5. A web-search subagent times out. What should it return to the coordinator?
  6. Why is marking a failed search as an empty successful result dangerous?
  7. Two subagents keep fetching the same sources. How do you cut duplication?
  8. The first synthesis pass leaves gaps in coverage. Best coordinator behavior?
  9. Two sources report conflicting statistics. How should synthesis handle it?
  10. No delegation is happening — the coordinator never spawns subagents. First thing to check?
  11. How should coordinator prompts be written to keep subagents adaptable?
  12. Some sources were unavailable during the run. What should the final report do?
  13. Someone proposes giving the synthesis agent all web-search tools 'just in case'. Why is that wrong?
  14. A finding needs to keep its citation through synthesis. Which format preserves attribution?
  15. How does the synthesis agent get access to the earlier web-search and document-analysis findings?

Scenario: Developer Productivity with Claude

  1. You need to find every caller of a function across the codebase. Which built-in tool?
  2. The agent keeps defaulting to built-in Grep instead of a more capable custom MCP search tool. Best fix?
  3. In a long exploration session, answers start referencing 'typical patterns' instead of the specific classes found earlier. What's happening and what helps?
  4. For a standard Jira integration, what's the recommended choice?
  5. You need to find every **/*.test.tsx file in the repo. Which built-in tool?
  6. An Edit fails because its anchor text isn't unique. Reliable fallback?
  7. Best way to build understanding of an unfamiliar codebase without exhausting context?
  8. You want the agent to see the DB schema and issue catalog without repeated exploratory tool calls. What exposes that?
  9. In a long exploration session, answers start citing 'typical patterns' instead of the specific classes found earlier. What's happening?
  10. A verbose discovery phase is about to flood the main conversation. Best approach?
  11. For a long multi-phase automation task, how do you make it resilient to a crash?
  12. The agent keeps preferring built-in Grep over a more capable custom MCP search tool. Best fix?
  13. Grep vs Glob — which does what?
  14. You need to trace a function's usage across several wrapper modules. Efficient strategy?
  15. For a standard Jira integration, what's recommended?

Scenario: Claude Code for Continuous Integration

  1. A pipeline running Claude Code hangs indefinitely waiting for input. Correct fix?
  2. You want review findings posted as inline PR comments programmatically. What produces machine-parseable output?
  3. Two workflows: (1) a blocking pre-merge check, (2) an overnight tech-debt report. Your manager wants both on the Batch API for the 50% savings. Best evaluation?
  4. On a re-run after new commits, how do you avoid re-posting duplicate review comments?
  5. A teammate suggests fixing the hanging pipeline with CLAUDE_HEADLESS=true or --batch. Correct assessment?
  6. Should the same session that generated the code also review it in CI?
  7. A reviewer proposes running each check 3 times and only flagging issues all runs agree on. What's the downside?
  8. The review has too many false positives from an instruction like 'check that comments are accurate'. Best fix?
  9. The overnight technical-debt report can tolerate up to 24h latency. Which API fits and why?
  10. A blocking pre-merge check makes developers wait for the result. Which API?
  11. Someone worries batch results might come back out of order and corrupt the pipeline. Correct response?
  12. A 14-file PR reviewed in a single pass gives inconsistent, contradictory feedback. Best restructuring?
  13. Does moving to a larger context window fix the inconsistent multi-file review?
  14. How do you give CI-invoked Claude the project's testing standards, fixtures, and review criteria?
  15. Auto-generated tests keep duplicating scenarios that existing tests already cover. Best fix?

Scenario: Structured Data Extraction

  1. Some invoices lack a 'po_number'. How should the schema handle it to prevent hallucination?
  2. You process mixed document types with several possible schemas and want to guarantee structured output. What tool_choice setting fits?
  3. An extraction keeps failing because the required value isn't present anywhere in the source document. Will retry-with-error-feedback help?
  4. Submitting 100 documents via the Batch API, a handful fail. How do you handle it efficiently?
  5. Using tool_use with a JSON schema, which errors does it eliminate?
  6. An extracted calculated_total doesn't match the invoice's stated_total. How do you catch this?
  7. You must guarantee extract_metadata runs before the enrichment step. Which setting?
  8. A field's value is genuinely ambiguous in the source. Best schema design?
  9. Aggregate extraction accuracy is 97%. Why isn't that enough to trust?
  10. How do you handle low-confidence or ambiguous extractions in production?
  11. A required field keeps coming back empty across varied document formats (inline citations vs bibliographies). Best fix?
  12. Validation keeps failing because the required value simply isn't present anywhere in the source. Will retry-with-error-feedback help?
  13. Some invoices lack a po_number. Making it a required field has what effect?
  14. You process mixed document types with several possible schemas and must guarantee a structured result. Which tool_choice?
  15. To find novel error patterns you haven't seen, how should you sample outputs for human review?
  16. Before running extraction across 100 documents in batch, what's the smart first move?

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