How to prepare for the Claude Developer Foundations certification (CCDV-F)

A friend asked me recently for the fastest realistic path to a Claude certification, and I wrote him a plan. This post is that plan, made public — because the exam he picked is the one I would point most developers at: Claude Certified Developer — Foundations (CCDV-F), the fair one of Anthropic's three certifications. I called it the most relaxing exam of my week when I sat all three. Fair is not the same as free, though. Plan one to two weeks part-time, or three to five days if you already use the Claude API regularly — the exam is scenario-based and conceptual, so hands-on familiarity beats memorising syntax.

01What the exam is

Fifty-three multiple-choice and multiple-response questions in 120 minutes, $125, delivered through Pearson VUE either online-proctored (OnVUE) or at a test centre. You need a scaled 720 out of 1,000 to pass, the credential lasts 12 months, and you get a digital badge through Credly. Retakes are allowed 14 days after a failed attempt, then 30 days, then 90 — up to four attempts per rolling year.

02The eight domains — and the one that matters most

• —Applications and integration — 33.1%. Structuring API calls, multi-turn conversations, system prompts, streaming, tool use, prompt caching. The heart of the exam.
• —Model selection and optimisation — 16.8%. Which model for which job, cost and latency trade-offs, context windows.
• —Agents and workflows — 14.7%. Agentic loops, and when an agent beats a fixed workflow.
• —Prompt and context engineering — 11%.
• —Tools and MCPs — 10.6%.
• —Security and safety — 8.1%.
• —Claude Code — 3.1%.
• —Eval, testing, and debugging — 2.6%.

The shape matters more than the list: the top three domains are roughly two-thirds of the marks, and all three are about actually building. Claude Code and evals barely appear — a glance, not a study session. And if you have already played with model trade-offs, streaming, and tool use, you are most of the way there. That is why this exam felt fair to me: it tests what a working developer actually knows.

03The plan

Day 0 — book first. Create a free Anthropic Academy account and start Building with the Claude API (84 lectures, about 8 hours — watch at 1.5x and skip what you know). Buy the exam on the official page, create your Pearson VUE account, and book the earliest OnVUE slot that falls after your study window. A fixed date is the best motivator, and you can reschedule up to 48 hours before.

Days 1–5 — study weighted. Applications and integration is the Academy course, so most of your hours are already pointed at the marks. Give model selection and agents a focused pass of docs.claude.com, one lighter pass over tools and MCPs, security, and prompt engineering — then just a glance at Claude Code and evals.

Days 6–7 — test yourself. Do the free question sets: Preporato's ten questions, the FlashGenius sample tests, Matthew Purcell's set, and the Reddit sample test. Read every explanation, especially for the ones you got wrong. Any domain where you score under about 70%: re-read just that section of the docs, and do not rabbit-hole.

04Exam day

• —OnVUE is online proctoring: quiet room, webcam, stable internet, government ID. Run Pearson's system test the day before.
• —53 questions in 120 minutes is comfortable — just over two minutes each. Flag anything slow and come back.
• —Read the scenario carefully. The obviously technical answer is often the wrong one: the exam tests how and when to use features, not syntax recall.
• —And the safety net is real — retakes from 14 days, up to four a year. Walk in relaxed.

My honest verdict, having sat all three: a certificate proves you studied, not that you can ship. But this one's prep is a genuinely good tour of the Claude API, and it is the sensible first certification for anyone building with Claude. If you want the hard one instead — the architect exam where Anthropic hid all the technical questions — that is the next post.