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CCDV-F study guide · 8 domains · 25 lessons · free, no sign-up

CCDV-F Study Guide: every domain of the Claude Certified Developer exam, explained

Free study guide for the Claude Certified Developer - Foundations (CCDV-F) exam: 25 lessons mapped to the official skills, with code and practice.

An independent community resource - not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic. The lessons follow the skills of the official CCDV-F exam guide (Version 1.0, effective July 2026); the practice questions are written from scratch and none come from a real exam.

Start with lesson 1.1 → Read the exam guide first

The exam at a glance

53Questions
120Minutes
720Pass mark of 1,000
159Practice questions here

What this guide is

The Claude Certified Developer - Foundations exam (CCDV-F) is written against 25 skills in the official exam guide, grouped into eight domains, each skill with its own share of the exam. This study guide has one lesson for each skill, in the same order, so you can read it front to back or start with the domains that carry the most weight.

Every lesson is built the same way. It starts with a problem a developer actually hits, before any jargon. It then teaches the mechanism one idea at a time, following a single example application all the way through, with diagrams, tables and short code in Python or TypeScript where the mechanism is code. It names the traps the exam sets around that skill, because most CCDV-F questions offer four reasonable-looking engineering choices and ask for the best one. It ends with a small build you can run, which breaks the thing on purpose, a list of takeaways, and five practice questions with every answer option explained: four written for the lesson and one from the bank that powers the timed simulators.

You need to be comfortable reading code, not to have built with Claude before. Every Claude-specific term is explained the first time it appears. Plan on 15 to 20 minutes per lesson.

How to use it

  1. Read the CCDV-F exam guide page once. It has the facts (53 questions, 120 minutes, pass at 720 on a 100 to 1,000 scale) and the registration rules.
  2. Start with the heavy domains. Applications and Integration is a third of the exam, and Model Selection and Optimization is another sixth; Claude Code and Eval, Testing, and Debugging together are under 6%.
  3. Build as you read. The exam asks about details you remember only after typing them: which API handles an overnight batch, where a secret belongs, when a hook beats a prompt.
  4. When you have read every domain, sit a 53-question timed simulator in the question bank. Treat a score under 75% as "not yet", whatever the real pass mark is.

Course outline

8 domains, 25 lessons, about 9 hours of reading. Domains are in the order the official guide lists them; the weight beside each is the share of the exam it carries.

Domain 1: Agents and Workflows 14.7% · ~8 questions · 3 lessons

When to build an agent and when a workflow, how to construct agents with the Claude Agent SDK and hooks, and the common agent patterns. 14.7% of CCDV-F.

  1. 1.1 Workflows, agents and supervisors: choosing the architecture 22 min
  2. 1.2 Building Claude agents: the Agent SDK, custom loops, hosting and hooks 23 min
  3. 1.3 Agent patterns and the frameworks that package them 21 min

Domain 2: Applications and Integration 33.1% · ~18 questions · 6 lessons

Building applications on Claude: requirements, lifecycle, API mechanics, engineering basics, app design and configuration. 33.1% of CCDV-F.

  1. 2.1 Turning business needs into functional and infrastructure requirements 21 min
  2. 2.2 The life cycle of a Claude system, from pilot to retirement 22 min
  3. 2.3 Claude API mechanics: requests, streams, caches and batches 24 min
  4. 2.4 Software engineering foundations: a Claude feature is still software 21 min
  5. 2.5 Designing Claude applications: what the model actually sees 24 min
  6. 2.6 Configuration management: pinning and versioning a Claude system 20 min

Domain 3: Claude Code 3.1% · ~2 questions · 1 lessons

Claude Code for developers: rules, skills, commands, agents, memory, the CLAUDE.md hierarchy, settings.json, sessions and headless mode. 3.1% of CCDV-F.

  1. 3.1 Operating Claude Code: from /init to headless runs 22 min

Domain 4: Eval, Testing, and Debugging 2.6% · ~1 questions · 1 lessons

Debugging Claude applications: error types, recovery strategies, reading traces and telling a fault in your code from one in the model. 2.6% of CCDV-F.

  1. 4.1 Debugging and error handling: find where a failure starts 21 min

Domain 5: Model Selection and Optimization 16.8% · ~9 questions · 4 lessons

How LLMs work in practice, the engineering behind SDK calls, choosing between Opus, Sonnet and Haiku, and managing tokens and cost. 16.8% of CCDV-F.

  1. 5.1 LLM fundamentals: tokens, sampling, thinking and examples 22 min
  2. 5.2 SDKs, REST and websockets: the plumbing around every Claude call 21 min
  3. 5.3 Choosing a model: capability, latency, cost and safe upgrades 21 min
  4. 5.4 Cost and token management: model the bill, then cut it 22 min

Domain 6: Prompt and Context Engineering 11.0% · ~6 questions · 3 lessons

Managing what Claude sees: context windows, compaction and subagents, prompts for applications, and handling output defensively. 11% of CCDV-F.

  1. 6.1 Context engineering: keep the window small and on task 22 min
  2. 6.2 Prompt engineering for applications: prompts that run on real data 22 min
  3. 6.3 Output handling: structure it, check it, doubt it 21 min

Domain 7: Security and Safety 8.1% · ~4 questions · 4 lessons

Securing Claude apps: prompt injection and untrusted input, guardrails and least privilege, hooks as controls, and secrets management. 8.1% of CCDV-F.

  1. 7.1 Securing a Claude application: injection, untrusted input and data leaks 23 min
  2. 7.2 Safe deployment: layered guardrails and least privilege 22 min
  3. 7.3 Hooks as safety controls: stopping destructive actions before they run 21 min
  4. 7.4 Secrets and key management: API keys, identity and access 21 min

Domain 8: Tools and MCPs 10.6% · ~6 questions · 3 lessons

Giving Claude tools: implementing tool use, building MCP servers, and choosing between built-in tools, custom tools, Skills and MCP. 10.6% of CCDV-F.

  1. 8.1 Implementing tools: definitions, dispatch, errors and approvals 22 min
  2. 8.2 Building an MCP server and connecting it to Claude 21 min
  3. 8.3 Built-in tools, custom tools, Skills or MCP: choosing the right extension 21 min

Three things that surprise people

It is an application exam, not an agent exam. Agents are one domain of eight. A third of the questions are about building and running applications: API mechanics, requirements, the software lifecycle, configuration.

Security is about controls, not wording. The official sample question on prompt injection has the pattern: the right answer keeps untrusted content apart from trusted instructions and enforces limits in code; asking users or the model to behave is the distractor.

The skill weights are uneven. Some skills are worth under 2% of the exam and others over 8%. Each lesson and domain page shows the weight, so you can spend your time where the questions are.

Frequently asked questions

Is this study guide really free?

Yes. Every lesson, every practice question on these pages, and the full question bank are free. The bank asks for an account only because the quiz engine has to store your answers to score them. Nothing here is behind a paywall.

Do I need an API key to follow along?

Reading needs nothing. The build exercises call the Claude API or use Claude Code, so they need an API key or a Claude plan with Claude Code; each exercise says when a step costs API credits.

Is it enough on its own to pass CCDV-F?

It covers every skill in the official guide, which is what the questions are written against. It cannot replace hands-on time: build a small application that uses tools, streaming and structured output while you read.

Is this affiliated with Anthropic?

No. It is an independent community resource. The exam facts come from Anthropic's published exam guide; the lessons and questions are written from scratch and none come from a real exam.

159 CCDV-F practice questions, free

159 practice questions here: timed practice sets and a full 53-question exam simulator on a 120-minute timer. Every answer option carries its own explanation, so a lucky guess reads the same as a wrong answer.

Open the CCDV-F question bank → Exam facts, rules and registration →

The question bank is free. It asks for an account only because the quiz engine has to store answers to score them and show which domains are weak. The questions on this page need nothing.