Preparation for the Claude certifications
"Thanks to Alloy I passed both my CCDF and CCAF exams — nearly perfect on CCDF, and today 790 on the CCAF."
Every attempt at a Claude certification exam is paid for in full, and the wait before you may sit it again grows with each failed attempt. Passing the first time is the cheapest outcome there is.
I built this app to make sure I walked in knowing every gap — not the gaps I thought I had, but the ones my performance data actually showed. The diagnostic told me where I was weak. Working through realistic situations forced me to reason under time pressure rather than recall definitions. The full practice run, calibrated harder than the official one, showed me I was ready before I paid for the real sitting.
“I only wanted to pay for this exam once. This app made sure I nailed it on the first try.”
Keith Bourne · Forward Deployed AI Engineer & Memriq Founder · May 2026
He sat this within a day of it being announced and finished its sixty-three questions in about sixty of the hundred and twenty minutes. His report is the useful one for anyone deciding what to study: he found it asked far less about the mechanics of the API than the Foundations exam did, and far more about which design decision was the right one and why. It is also the only exam of the four that mixes three different question formats.
“Noticeably less about API mechanics than the Foundations exam and much more about judgement — which pattern, which trade-off, which control, and why.”
Matthew Purcell · Generative AI Specialist, AWS · July 2026 · LinkedIn
His highest score of the four, and his fastest sitting, at fifty-three questions in about forty-five minutes. He rates it the second hardest of the set on technical difficulty, behind Architect Foundations, and puts the difference down to scope rather than depth: the specifics you have to hold in your head are narrower and more predictable. The recurring subject is configuration, meaning which model, which mode, which effort level, and when to batch rather than stream.
“A close second in technical difficulty to the Architect — Foundations exam.”
Matthew Purcell · Generative AI Specialist, AWS · July 2026 · LinkedIn
He sat this one straight after the Developer exam on the same afternoon, and finished the sixty questions in about an hour of the two he was given. He had expected the non-technical exam to be the easy one and reported that it was not: the questions put a business situation in front of you and ask where Claude fits in it, which is a different kind of thinking from naming a feature.
“It is not hard — but you can’t sleepwalk through it either.”
Matthew Purcell · Generative AI Specialist, AWS · July 2026 · LinkedIn
The credential is valid for twelve months from the day you pass, and it arrives as a Credly badge you can link to. Renewing inside that window is free, but it has to happen before the term ends. A lapsed certification cannot be renewed, only earned again from the beginning.
What others are scoring
"I passed Anthropic's Claude Certified Architect Foundations exam with a score of 893/1000."
Kishor Kukreja · 2026 · Medium
"I Passed the Claude Architect Exam — Here's the SKILL.md Framework You Can Use to Learn and Pass Too"
Sarvesh Talele · 2026 · Medium
"Successfully passed my Anthropic CCA-F exam and scored 94% on the exam."
Anonymous commenter (dev.to) · 2026 · dev.to
"Within 72 hours of launch, r/ClaudeAI was flooded with passing-score screenshots (one user posted 985/1000)."
Anonymous (r/ClaudeAI) · March 2026 · Reddit
Reported second-hand — this is an article describing a screenshot, not a post we could open ourselves.
"People with genuine production experience have a solid shot at passing; those who try to shortcut through practice questions without building underlying mental models are the ones retaking it."
Sachin (AI with Sachin) · 2026 · Substack
"Anthropic Claude Certification: Passed CCA-F Exam"
Vladimir Provorov · March 2026 · LinkedIn
"Passing Claude Certified Architect — Foundations Exam…"
Deep Patel · 2026 · LinkedIn
"Becoming a Claude Certified Architect"
Zekeriya Besiroglu · 2026 · Medium
"Mental models that separate passing candidates from failing ones."
Rick Hightower · March 2026 · the source
"This is the kind of stuff which you either know or don’t know, and you can’t easily derive it in a multiple choice exam."
Matthew Purcell · Generative AI Specialist, AWS · June 2026 · LinkedIn
"Daily use had given me fluency with the parts I reach for and blind spots around the parts I do not. The exam found the blind spots."
John Weidner · Engineering, Very Good Ventures · May 2026 · the source
"The exam is not simply testing technical knowledge; it evaluates whether you can make reliable and production-oriented AI architecture decisions."
John Mathew · May 2026 · Medium
"Overall, I found it easier than I had initially expected, and the exam also uses partial grading for some questions."
Kamal Dhungana · July 2026 · Medium
"This exam is noticeably less about API mechanics than the Foundations exam and much more about judgement — which pattern, which trade-off, which control, and why."
Matthew Purcell · Generative AI Specialist, AWS · July 2026 · LinkedIn
"A close second in technical difficulty to the Architect — Foundations exam. Unlike the Professional exam, this one does require specific technical knowledge."
Matthew Purcell · Generative AI Specialist, AWS · July 2026 · LinkedIn
"It is not hard — but you can’t sleepwalk through it either. The questions require you to actually think about business context and workflow fit, rather than just recognising product names."
Matthew Purcell · Generative AI Specialist, AWS · July 2026 · LinkedIn