// CCA Exam Reference

CCA Quick Reference
Cheatsheet

Everything for the Claude Certified Architect exam. One page. Zero fluff.

5 domains, 10 anti-patterns, 6 scenarios. Key concepts, code patterns, and the exam structure — all in one reference card. Click domains to expand, search to filter, or print for offline study.

// Section 01

Exam Overview

Questions

60

Multiple choice, 1 correct

Pass Score

720/1000

~72% correct answers

Scenarios

4 of 6

Randomly selected each exam

// Section 02

Domain Weights

D1 Agentic27%
D2 Tools/MCP18%
D3 Claude Code20%
D4 Prompts20%
D5 Context15%
// Section 03

Key Concepts

|
stop_reason: "tool_use" = continue loop, "end_turn" = agent is done[Lesson 3]
Hub-and-spoke: coordinator manages ALL communication between subagents[Lesson 2]
Subagents get EXPLICIT context passed to them (no automatic inheritance)[Lesson 2]
allowedTools must include "Task" for coordinators to spawn subagents
Anti-pattern: Natural language parsing for agentic loop termination
Agent = LLM + tools + loop. Without the loop, it is just a chatbot.
Agentic loop: prompt -> LLM -> tool_use -> execute -> append result -> repeat
Orchestration patterns: routing (one-shot), pipeline (sequential), hub-and-spoke (coordinator)
// Section 04

The 10 Anti-Patterns

1
Tool OverloadD2

Giving one agent 18+ tools — selection accuracy degrades rapidly

2
NL Loop TerminationD1

Parsing natural language to decide when the agentic loop should stop

3
Context InheritanceD1

Assuming subagents automatically inherit the coordinator's context

4
Same-Session Self-ReviewD4

Asking the model to review its own output in the same conversation

5
Confidence-Based EscalationD5

Using self-reported confidence scores to decide when to escalate to a human

6
Progressive Summarization DriftD5

Repeatedly summarizing context until critical details are lost

7
Generic Tool NamesD2

Naming tools 'do_thing' or 'process' instead of specific, differentiated names

8
Missing Stop ConditionsD1

No explicit termination criteria — agent loops indefinitely

9
Raw Exception ForwardingD2

Passing raw stack traces as tool errors instead of structured isError responses

10
Monolithic PromptsD3

Cramming all instructions into one massive system prompt instead of layering CLAUDE.md files

// Section 05

The 6 Exam Scenarios

4 of 6 scenarios are randomly selected each exam. Prepare for all of them.

1

SaaS Multi-Agent Customer Support

D1D2
2

CI/CD Code Review Pipeline

D3D4
3

Research & Report Generation

D1D5
4

Data Pipeline Orchestration

D2D5
5

Enterprise Knowledge Base Agent

D4D5
6

Autonomous DevOps Agent

D1D3
// The Code Whisperer

jeremyknox.ai/academy

Master every domain with the full 39-lesson CCA Academy course. From fundamentals through advanced architecture to exam-day strategy.

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Exam Prep

CCA Practice Exam

20 scenario-based questions across all 5 CCA domains.

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Reference

Prompt Pattern Library

12 production prompt patterns with copy-paste templates.

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