New Leanpub certification guide

Pass the Claude Architect exam by learning how the questions think.

Architect the Agent: The CCA-F Certification Guide is my scenario-based guide for the Claude Certified Architect Foundations exam.

The exam is not a vocabulary quiz. It asks whether you can make the right architectural call when an agent loop is stuck, a tool boundary is wrong, an MCP server is too broad, or a Claude Code workflow needs controls before it touches real delivery.

The book teaches the five exam domains through realistic failures, hands-on builds, scenario quizzes, two full practice exams, flashcards, a glossary, and detailed explanations of why the tempting wrong answers fail.

Get the Leanpub guide Read the launch note

Cover of Architect the Agent: The CCA-F Certification Guide by Thomas De Vos

Watch the introduction

Learn CCA-F faster with a structured study path.

This short introduction explains why the guide is built around scenario judgment: read the broken agent, find the weak boundary, and choose the answer that keeps the system controlled.

Who it is for

This guide is for solution architects, AI engineers, platform engineers, technical leads, and developers preparing for the Claude Certified Architect Foundations exam.

It is especially useful if you already know the Claude ecosystem but want a sharper exam method: read the scenario, spot the architectural failure, eliminate the attractive distractors, and choose the answer that makes the system safer and more reliable.

What the guide covers

The book follows the exam domains and turns them into working judgment:

  • agentic architecture and orchestration
  • tools, schemas, MCP servers, and resource scoping
  • Claude Code configuration, permissions, hooks, skills, commands, and CI/CD workflows
  • prompt precision, few-shot examples, structured output, and validation
  • context management, reliability, review, provenance, and escalation
  • capstone builds, exam-day routines, study calendars, and two full practice exams

The repeated pattern is simple: understand the failure, learn the mechanism, then practise the decision under pressure.

Why this exam needs a different study method

A lot of certification prep trains recall. The CCA-F exam rewards judgment.

If a question shows an agent that keeps retrying, the answer is probably not “add a better prompt”. If a tool returns vague errors, the answer is probably not “increase temperature”. If a subagent invents context, the fix is not inspiration. It is architecture.

That is why the book spends so much time on distractors. Wrong answers often sound productive. They only fail when you see the boundary they cross.

What you get

  • A complete study path for the Claude Certified Architect Foundations exam
  • Scenario quizzes at chapter level
  • Two full practice exams with answer keys
  • A distractor appendix that explains why each wrong answer fails
  • Original figures for architecture patterns that are easier to see than to read
  • Flashcards, glossary material, and study calendars
  • Capstone builds that turn exam ideas into working patterns

Start here

If you are studying for the Claude Architect exam, start with the landing page and then read the launch note. I will add more public posts around CCA-F study strategy, exam traps, and the production architecture behind the questions.

Get Architect the Agent on Leanpub

Disclaimer

This is an independent study guide. It is not published by, endorsed by, affiliated with, or sponsored by Anthropic. Claude, Claude Code, Claude Certified Architect, and related marks belong to Anthropic. Always confirm exam details against Anthropic’s official exam guide before booking your sitting.