Anthropic · CCAR-F · Foundations
Claude Certified Architect – Foundations (CCAR-F)
Also searched for as "CCA-F". The official exam code is CCAR-F.
Solution architects who design and build agent systems with Claude: agentic loops, multi-agent orchestration, tools and MCP, Claude Code configuration, structured output and reliability.
125 free practice questions · full timed mock exam · study plan · animated lessons
Exam facts
- How many questions are on the CCAR-F exam? 60 questions, multiple choice and multiple response.
- How long is the CCAR-F exam? 120 minutes.
- What is the CCAR-F pass mark? 720 scaled (100–1,000)
- How much does the CCAR-F exam cost? $125 USD before any partner discount.
- Who can take the CCAR-F exam? Only people who work at Claude Partner Network organisations can take the exams, registering with a company email on a domain listed on their organisation's partner record (personal email addresses won't work). You must be 18 or over and show a valid, unexpired, government-issued photo ID whose name exactly matches your exam profile.
- How is the CCAR-F exam delivered? Proctored by Pearson VUE: online proctored (OnVUE) or Pearson test center; registration via Anthropic Partner Academy (Claude Partner Network members, 18+, partner email domain)
- How long is the CCAR-F certification valid? Valid for 12 months from the day you earn it. Renew for free before it expires by passing an open-book, non-proctored assessment on Partner Academy; if it lapses, you must pass the full exam again at the full fee.
Checked 2026-11-15 against the official exam guide (v1.0, July 2026). Official exam guide · Official certification FAQ
Retakes, rescheduling and more
- How long should I set aside on exam day? The exam itself is 120 minutes, but Anthropic advises planning for about 135 minutes of total seat time, to cover check-in, instructions and a short survey afterwards. For an online (OnVUE) exam, Pearson VUE also asks you to start check-in 30 minutes before your appointment time, for system checks, ID photos and a room scan, so allow time beyond the exam itself.
- Can I take the exam online or at a test centre? Either. All four exams are delivered by Pearson VUE, and you choose between OnVUE online proctoring and a Pearson test centre at the time you schedule. To switch, cancel and book again. If your government ID is from Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Syria or a restricted region of Ukraine, you can't use OnVUE and must test at a test centre.
- How do I register and book the exam? Since 12 November 2026 you register in Anthropic Partner Academy, go to Pearson VUE through the Partner Academy sign-in, then pay and pick a date at Pearson's checkout, where any partner discount is applied automatically. You need a company email on a domain listed on your organisation's Claude Partner Network record. Personal email addresses won't work.
- What do I need on exam day? A valid, unexpired, government-issued photo ID. The name on it must exactly match your exam profile, or you can't test and you lose the fee. You must be 18 or over, and your age is checked against the ID.
- Is there a discount on the exam fee? It depends on your organisation's Claude Partner Network tier. Registered-tier partners pay full price. Select, Preferred and Global Premier partners get 50% off, applied automatically at Pearson's checkout. Up to and including 31 December 2026, Global Premier partners get 100% off instead, so their exams are free; after that date, the standard 50% discount applies. The discount is locked in when you schedule, so book by 31 December 2026 to keep the 100% discount.
- Why do some sites say Architect – Foundations (CCAR-F) costs $99? That was the old CCAR-F price. From 30 June 2026, the same day exam delivery moved to Pearson VUE, the CCAR-F fee went up from $99 to $125 (USD, before any partner discount). Registrations completed before that date paid $99.
- Is the exam open book? No. The exams are closed book: no notes, documentation, translation tools or AI assistants. Only the separate renewal assessment is open book.
- What languages is the exam in? English and Japanese only. You pick the language when you schedule at Pearson. To switch a booked English exam to Japanese, cancel it and book again through Partner Academy. No translation tools, devices or software, including browser translation, are allowed during the exam; if English is your second language, you can ask Pearson for extra time instead.
- What happens if I fail? How do retakes work? You wait 14 days after a first failed attempt, 30 days after a second and 90 days after a third. You can sit the same exam at most four times in any rolling 12-month period. These limits apply to each exam separately, and Anthropic's policies say they reset when an exam moves to a new version. Each retake costs the full exam fee, and any partner discount you get applies to retakes too. Once you pass, you can't retake the exam to raise your score.
- Can I cancel or reschedule the exam? Test-centre exams can be cancelled or rescheduled free up to 48 hours before. For online (OnVUE) exams Anthropic says up to one hour before, but Pearson VUE's FAQ says 48 hours, so make changes at least 48 hours ahead to be safe. The 24-hour cutoff in the July 2026 exam guides is out of date. If you change after the deadline or don't show up, you lose the fee and must pay for a new attempt; the exam guides say the same applies if you arrive after the late-arrival window. If you paid at Pearson's checkout and cancel in time, the refund starts automatically and takes 7 to 10 business days; rescheduling instead keeps your locked price and discount.
- How does renewal work? Each certification is valid for 12 months from the day you earn it. Before it expires, you renew for free by passing an open-book, non-proctored online assessment on Partner Academy, which you can retake as many times as you need. Passing adds 12 months to your current expiry date, not to the day you renew, so renewing early does not shorten your validity. If it lapses, you must pass the full exam again at the full fee. If Anthropic substantially updates an exam, it may require holders to pass the current version of the exam, rather than the renewal assessment, to stay certified; Anthropic decides this case by case. Anthropic hasn't yet said how early the renewal window opens. Certifications earned before 30 June 2026, when validity was 6 months, were automatically extended to 12 months from the date they were originally earned.
- How do I get my certificate or badge? After you pass, Credly, Anthropic's digital badge platform, emails you an invitation to accept your badge. You can then share it on LinkedIn and download a PDF certificate.
- Which certifications count toward Claude Partner Network eligibility? Developer – Foundations (CCDV-F), Architect – Foundations (CCAR-F) and Architect – Professional (CCAR-P) count toward Claude Partner Network eligibility. Associate – Foundations (CCAO-F) does not.
- Can I take the exam from any country? Only from the countries and regions Anthropic supports (see its Supported Regions Policy). Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia are excluded, and Pearson VUE has suspended exam delivery to residents of Iran since 8 September 2026.
What the exam covers
D1 Agentic Architecture & Orchestration (27% of the exam)
- 1.1 Design agentic loops (stop_reason handling) · lesson: The agentic loop
- 1.2 Coordinator–subagent orchestration · lesson: Coordinators and subagents
- 1.3 Subagent invocation, context passing and spawning · lesson: Configuring subagents
- 1.4 Enforcement and handoff patterns · lesson: Enforcement and handoff
- 1.5 Agent SDK hooks for interception and normalisation · lesson: Hooks for tool calls
- 1.6 Task decomposition strategies · lesson: Task decomposition
- 1.7 Session state, resumption and forking · lesson: Sessions: resume and fork
D2 Tool Design & MCP Integration (18% of the exam)
- 2.1 Tool interfaces with clear descriptions and boundaries · lesson: Designing tool interfaces
- 2.2 Structured error responses for MCP tools · lesson: Structured error responses
- 2.3 Tool distribution across agents and tool_choice · lesson: Distributing tools and tool_choice
- 2.4 MCP servers in Claude Code and agents · lesson: MCP servers in Claude Code and agents
- 2.5 Built-in tools (Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Grep, Glob) · lesson: Built-in tools
D3 Claude Code Configuration & Workflows (20% of the exam)
- 3.1 CLAUDE.md hierarchy, scoping and modular organisation · lesson: The CLAUDE.md hierarchy
- 3.2 Custom slash commands and skills · lesson: Custom commands and skills
- 3.3 Path-specific rules · lesson: Path-specific rules
- 3.4 Plan mode vs direct execution · lesson: Plan mode vs direct execution
- 3.5 Iterative refinement · lesson: Iterative refinement
- 3.6 Claude Code in CI/CD · lesson: Claude Code in CI/CD
D4 Prompt Engineering & Structured Output (20% of the exam)
- 4.1 Explicit criteria to reduce false positives · lesson: Explicit criteria beat vague instructions
- 4.2 Few-shot prompting · lesson: Few-shot prompting for consistency
- 4.3 Structured output with tool use and JSON schemas · lesson: Structured output with schemas and tools
- 4.4 Validation, retry and feedback loops · lesson: Validation, retry and feedback loops
- 4.5 Batch processing strategies · lesson: Batch processing, and when not to
- 4.6 Multi-instance and multi-pass review · lesson: Independent and multi-pass review
D5 Context Management & Reliability (15% of the exam)
- 5.1 Preserve critical information in long interactions · lesson: Context is a budget, not a bucket
- 5.2 Escalation and ambiguity resolution · lesson: Escalation and ambiguity
- 5.3 Error propagation across multi-agent systems · lesson: Error propagation across agents
- 5.4 Context in large codebase exploration · lesson: Context in large codebases
- 5.5 Human review and confidence calibration · lesson: Human review and calibration
- 5.6 Provenance and uncertainty in synthesis · lesson: Provenance and uncertainty
Scenarios (4 of these 6 appear on your exam)
- S1 Customer Support Resolution Agent
- S2 Code Generation with Claude Code
- S3 Multi-Agent Research System
- S4 Developer Productivity with Claude
- S5 Claude Code for Continuous Integration
- S6 Structured Data Extraction
Sample practice questions
D1 · scenario S1
A support agent built with the Agent SDK uses MCP tools get_customer, lookup_order, process_refund and escalate_to_human, targeting 80% first-contact resolution. The agent occasionally issues refunds before verifying identity, despite a clear rule in the prompt. What is the most reliable fix?
- Restate the verification rule in capitals at the top and bottom of the system prompt
- Move the agent to a larger model that follows multi-step instructions more reliably
- Add ten few-shot conversations that always show verification happening before any refund
- Have process_refund reject calls until verification has succeeded in this session
D2 · scenario S1
A support agent built with the Agent SDK uses MCP tools get_customer, lookup_order, process_refund and escalate_to_human, targeting 80% first-contact resolution. process_refund takes an order_id and an amount. Twice this month, a customer disputed one item and the agent refunded the whole order. What is the best change?
- Lower the temperature so the agent picks refund amounts more consistently
- Add a system prompt rule telling the agent to refund only the disputed items
- Require the agent to call lookup_order right before every process_refund call
- Make the tool take line-item IDs and compute the amount itself, rejecting others
D5 · scenario S1
A support agent built with the Agent SDK uses MCP tools get_customer, lookup_order, process_refund and escalate_to_human, targeting 80% first-contact resolution. A customer with a simple, solvable issue writes "I want to speak to a person." What should the agent do?
- Escalate right away, passing a handoff summary that holds all the case facts
- Ask the customer why they prefer a human so the agent can address that concern
- Explain that the agent can handle this faster and carry on with the resolution
- Resolve the simple issue first, then offer a human only if it stays unresolved