CCA Exam Guide

About the CCA Foundations Certification

The Claude Certified Architect (CCA) Foundations certification validates your expertise in designing and building production-grade applications with Claude. It is aimed at software engineers, solutions architects, AI engineers, and technical leads who work with Anthropic's models.

Earning the CCA credential demonstrates that you can architect reliable, secure, and efficient systems across all major Claude capabilities — from prompt engineering to agentic workflows.

Exam Format

All questions are scenario-based — you will not encounter simple definition recall. Each question presents a realistic situation requiring you to choose the best architectural decision.

Domain Breakdown

The exam is weighted across five domains. Understanding this weighting helps you allocate study time effectively:

Domain 1: Agentic Architecture — 27%

The largest portion of the exam. Covers autonomous agent design patterns, orchestration strategies (router, pipeline, parallel), multi-agent coordination, reliability patterns (SPIDER), error handling, and human-in-the-loop design.

Domain 2: Claude Code Configuration — 20%

Covers CLAUDE.md file structure and best practices, project-level vs user-level configuration, permission models, slash commands, and how to integrate MCP servers into Claude Code workflows.

Domain 3: Prompt Engineering — 20%

System prompt design, chain-of-thought prompting, few-shot patterns, role and persona prompting, the PRECISE framework, output formatting, and techniques for reducing hallucination.

Domain 4: Tool Design & MCP — 18%

Model Context Protocol fundamentals, MCP server architecture, tool schema design, resource and prompt management, transport layers (stdio, SSE), security considerations, and error handling patterns.

Domain 5: Context Management — 15%

Token budget optimization, prompt caching (ephemeral and persistent), multi-turn conversation design, the CALM framework, context window strategies, and managing long conversations.

Study Strategy

Based on the experience of students who have passed the CCA on their first attempt, here is an effective preparation approach:

1. Learn the domains — Work through all five lesson modules to build foundational understanding
2. Practice with short sessions — Use Quick Sprint mode daily to identify weak areas
3. Focus on weaknesses — Review explanations for every wrong answer, not just the correct choice
4. Use mnemonics — Frameworks like SPIDER, CALM, and PRECISE help you recall decision criteria under exam pressure
5. Simulate real conditions — Take at least two full-length timed exams before your test date

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Focusing only on Agentic Architecture because it has the highest weight — every domain can make or break your score
• Memorizing tool names without understanding when and why to use them
• Ignoring Context Management (15%) — these questions often distinguish passing from failing scores
• Not practicing under timed conditions — time pressure changes how you approach scenario questions

Test Your Readiness

Once you understand the format and domains, take a full CCA Foundations exam to evaluate your readiness.

You can also sharpen specific areas with our CCA practice questions bank of 300 scenario-based questions across all domains.