CCAR-F study plan

Your step-by-step plan

1. Read the exam guide and inventory the six scenarios

   Day 1

   Read the CCAR-F exam guide end to end, then write the six published scenarios on one page: support agent, Claude Code codegen, multi-agent research, developer productivity, continuous integration, and structured data extraction. Four appear on any given form. For each, note the constraints it naturally carries, such as latency for a live support agent and a build-time budget for a pipeline job, because those constraints are what the items turn on.

2. Build a working agentic loop from scratch

   Week 1

   Implement the loop on the Claude Agent SDK yourself: send, branch on stop_reason, execute tools, append results, iterate to end_turn. Add one PreToolUse hook that blocks a call and one PostToolUse hook that reshapes a result. Two hours here makes Domain 1 mechanical instead of memorised, and it is the largest domain on the exam.

3. Design and break a set of tools

   Week 2

   Write three MCP tools with deliberately overlapping descriptions, watch the model misroute, then repair them with input formats, example queries, edge cases and an explicit boundary against the nearest alternative. Return a structured error with a category and a retryable flag, and separate an access failure from a valid empty result. Cover Task Statements 2.1 through 2.5 by hand rather than by reading.

4. Configure Claude Code properly on a real repository

   Week 2

   Set up a project CLAUDE.md, a package-level one, a path-scoped rule file with glob frontmatter, one skill with allowed-tools and argument-hint, and one project-scoped slash command. Verify which memory files actually load. Then run a headless review in a pipeline job with structured output. The scope questions on this exam are easy once you have watched a user-level rule fail to reach a teammate.

5. Drill structured output and its limits

   Week 3

   Build an extraction tool with a JSON schema, force it with tool_choice, and feed it documents messy enough to produce schema-valid nonsense. Add nullable fields and an unclear enum member, then write the validation step that compares a calculated total against a stated one and the retry that feeds the specific failure back. Finish by rewriting one vague quality prompt as explicit categorical criteria with an example per severity band.

6. Practise scenario questions and read every rationale

   Week 3-4

   Move to full scenario sets and read the explanation on every item, including the ones you answered correctly. The distractors on this exam are competent engineering choices that answer a different requirement, so the marks live in understanding why a good option is the wrong option here. Track which distractor family catches you: probabilistic where a guarantee was needed, assumed context, or a lossy signal.

7. Close weak domains, then sit a timed mock

   Week 4-5

   Use per-domain accuracy to pick the two domains dragging you down and drill those rather than re-reading what you already know. Then sit at least one full timed run to rehearse pacing across long scenario stems, and note that multiple-response items state how many answers to select, so read that line before evaluating options.

Frequently asked questions