~/study-hub $ cat exam.md
The exam
What you'll face on exam day, taken from the official exam guide and Pearson VUE.
Last checked: 2026-11-05 · based on Exam guide v1.0 (July 2026). Exam details can change; the official exam page is the source of truth.
Facts
- Exam
- Claude Certified Architect – Foundations (CCAR-F)
- Length
- 60 questions in 120 minutes
- Item types
- Multiple choice and multiple response (each item says how many answers to pick), built around 4 scenarios drawn at random from a published set of 6
- Scoring
- Scaled score from 100 to 1,000; 720 passes. Pass/fail depends on the total score only; the report also shows percent correct per domain
- Delivery
- Pearson VUE, online proctored (OnVUE) or at a test center; the credential is issued as a Credly badge
- Fee
- $125 USD per attempt; checkout applies any discount for your partner tier
- Eligibility
- Staff of Claude Partner Network organisations (membership is free for firms)
- Validity
- 12 months. Renewing on time is a free, non-proctored assessment on the Partner Academy; once it lapses you retake the full exam
- Experience
- Typical candidate: 6+ months of hands-on work with the Claude API, Agent SDK, Claude Code and MCP (a profile, not a prerequisite)
- Retakes
- Wait 14 days after a first fail, 30 after a second, 90 after a third; at most 4 attempts in any rolling 12 months
Domains and weights
| Course | Domain | Weight | Guide # |
|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Agentic Architecture & Orchestration | 27% | 1 |
| C2 | Claude Code Configuration & Workflows | 20% | 3 |
| C3 | Prompt Engineering & Structured Output | 20% | 4 |
| C4 | Tool Design & MCP Integration | 18% | 2 |
| C5 | Context Management & Reliability | 15% | 5 |
"Guide #" is the domain's number in the official exam guide, which orders the domains differently from these courses.
Not eligible yet?
The exam is open to staff of Claude Partner Network organisations. If that's not you yet, you can still build the skills. Anthropic Academy has free courses with a completion badge. They're useful background, but the exam guide doesn't list them as official preparation.
- Claude Code 101
about 1.5 h · 12 lessons + quiz
- Claude Code in Action
about 1 h · 9 lessons + quiz
Sources
Official
- Claude Certified Architect – Foundations (Anthropic Partner Academy)
- Anthropic certifications at Pearson VUE
- Four role-based Claude certifications (claude.com)
- Claude Partner Network announcement (anthropic.com)