Claude Certified Architect - Foundations: Exam Preparation Guide
A comprehensive study guide for developers and solution architects preparing for the Claude Certified Architect - Foundations certification exam.
Who Is This For?
This guide is designed for developers and solution architects who are new to the LLM space and want to build a solid foundation for the certification. If you have experience building LLM applications, it also serves as a focused review of the nuances the exam emphasizes.
What Does It Cover?
The guide covers interconnected knowledge areas:
- API fundamentals and output control - stateless requests, tool choice, structured outputs, response prefill
- Designing tool interfaces for LLM agents - parameter design, structured output, tool composition, confirmation flows
- Error handling in agent tools - transient vs. permanent errors, structured error responses, uncertain state, MCP error patterns
- Structured data extraction and validation - schemas, nullability, semantic validation, provenance, human review
- Conversation context management - progressive summarization, state objects, retrieval, stale data handling
- System prompt engineering - structure, principles vs. conditionals, dilution, few-shot examples
- Model Context Protocol (MCP) - tools, resources, prompts, trust model, tool descriptions, configuration scopes
- Agentic patterns and multi-agent workflows - prompt chaining, routing, orchestrator-workers, subagents, provenance
- Customer service workflow design - escalation, compliance enforcement, graceful degradation, handoff design
- Claude Code and Agent SDK workflows - built-in tools, plan mode, sessions, memory, slash commands, hooks
- Evaluation, feedback loops, and batch processing - validation, false-positive reduction, Message Batches, cost/latency trade-offs
Each section includes:
- What to Know - core concepts explained as teaching material
- Common Pitfalls - misconceptions and subtle distinctions
Plus a Study Strategy, Quick Reference Cheat Sheet, and Recommended Reading & Resources with links to official documentation.
Read the Guide
Downloads
PDF and EPUB versions are published from tagged releases. See the repository's GitHub Releases for downloadable study booklet formats.
Building the Booklet
Release assets are generated from exam-preparation-guide.md with Pandoc. The Markdown file remains the source of truth, while the files in publishing/ provide booklet metadata, front matter, PDF styling, EPUB styling, and the cover image.
To build locally:
./scripts/build-release-assets.sh
The script writes generated files to dist/. EPUB generation requires Pandoc. PDF generation also requires xelatex. If rsvg-convert is available, the EPUB cover is converted to PNG for broader reader compatibility.
For local test builds, the generated title pages use Version: dev. Tagged releases use the tag name automatically. You can override the displayed version with:
RELEASE_VERSION=v1.0.0 ./scripts/build-release-assets.sh
Disclaimer
This is an independent, community-created study guide. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Anthropic. No exam questions are included, paraphrased, or hinted at - this guide teaches the underlying knowledge domains only.
The guide was authored with assistance from Claude.
Contributing
Found an error? Have a suggestion? Feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.
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License
This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0. You are free to share and adapt it with attribution.