CCAF, CCA-F or CCAR-F? Sorting out the Claude certification codes
Three abbreviations, one exam. What the official code actually is, where the other two came from, and how the four Claude certification codes fit together.
Search for this exam and you will find it called at least three things. They are the same exam. Here is which one is official and why the others exist.
The short answer
CCAR-F is the official code. It appears on the cover of the exam guide — "Version 1.0 · Effective July 2026 · Exam code: CCAR-F" — and in the exam details table. If you are writing something that needs to be correct, use that one.
CCA-F and CCAF are community usage. They are widespread — on course listings, in forum threads, in the domain name this site is served from — and everyone knows what you mean. Neither is wrong in conversation; neither is the code Anthropic assigned.
Where the confusion comes from
The obvious reading of "Claude Certified Architect – Foundations" is CCA for the credential and -F for the level, giving CCA-F. That is the abbreviation most people construct on first contact, and it is why it spread before the exam guide was widely read. Drop the hyphen and you get CCAF.
Anthropic used CCAR for the architect track instead. Once you see the full family, that choice stops looking arbitrary:
| Code | Credential |
|---|---|
CCAO-F | Claude Certified Associate – Foundations |
CCDV-F | Claude Certified Developer – Foundations |
CCAR-F | Claude Certified Architect – Foundations |
CCAR-P | Claude Certified Architect – Professional |
CCA on its own would have been ambiguous between Associate and Architect — both start with A. So the programme uses a distinct two-letter track code (AO, DV, AR) followed by the level (F for Foundations, P for Professional). CCAR-P only makes sense as a sibling of CCAR-F, which is the tell that CCAR is deliberate rather than a typo.
Which to use where
Searching: try more than one. Different resources index under different spellings, and a search for CCA-F practice questions will surface a partly different set from CCAR-F practice questions. If you are hunting for material, that is worth two searches rather than one.
Registering, or anything official: CCAR-F. That is what appears in the Partner Academy catalogue and on the exam guide.
Talking to people: whatever they used. Nobody in this space is confused about which exam you mean.
What the credential actually is
Whatever you call it, the exam is the same: 60 items in 120 minutes, closed book and proctored through Pearson VUE, $125 USD, passing at a scaled score of 720 on a 100–1,000 scale, valid for 12 months. Questions are grouped under four scenarios drawn from a published bank of six.
It is Anthropic's first official technical credential and sits at the entry point of the architect track. There is no formal prerequisite — you can sit CCAR-F without holding CCAO-F or CCDV-F — though the guide describes an ideal candidate with around six months of hands-on experience across the Claude API, Agent SDK, Claude Code and MCP.
The exam guide summary has the full detail, and the FAQ covers the questions that come up most.
A note on this site's name
This site is served from ccafpreparation.com, which uses the community spelling, while every piece of copy on it uses CCAR-F for the exam itself. That is deliberate rather than an oversight: the domain matches how people search, and the content matches how Anthropic writes it. If that reads as inconsistent, this page is the explanation.