How to Pass the Claude Certified Architect (CCA) Foundations Exam

Anthropic launched its first official technical certification on March 12, 2026 — the Claude Certified Architect (CCA) Foundations exam. It's a proctored, scenario-based exam designed for engineers building production applications with Claude. There's almost no prep material out there yet. So I put together a complete study guide: a 7-week roadmap and a curated reading list of 38 official docs, mapped directly from Anthropic's official exam guide PDF. What the exam actually tests The CCA Foundations has 60 questions across 5 domains: Domain Weight Agentic Architecture & Orchestration 27% Claude Code Configuration & Workflows 20% Prompt Engineering & Structured Output 20% Tool Design & MCP Integration 18% Context Management & Reliability 15% The questions are scenario-based — you get a realistic production context and have to choose the best architectural decision. It's not about memorizing API syntax. It's about knowing why you'd use programmatic hooks over prompt instructions, or when