Learning path
Claude Architect path
Qualify a customer opportunity, design the Claude architecture, and explain your choices.
What you can do at the end
Write a recommendation for a real opportunity that sets out the use case and why it suits Claude, the success criteria, the platform and deployment choice with reasons, and the open risks you’d take into a security review.
Before you start
You’ve designed or reviewed software systems for clients before. No Claude experience is assumed. If you already build on the Claude Developer Platform, you’ll move through the core quickly, and Claude Platform 101 is a refresher.
Time and format
About 9 hours in all. Take the courses in order or one at a time.
Core
Complete a core course on this site once and it counts toward every path that includes it.
1AI Capabilities and Limitations
About 60 min. An accurate picture of what a language model can and can’t do, which shapes most of the design decisions that follow.
2AI Fluency for Builders
About 45 min. Delegation, description, discernment, and diligence, applied to building.
3Claude Platform and Model Foundations
About 60 min. The four decisions you make before writing a prompt: entry point, capability features, model, and context.
4Choosing the right Claude model
On Claude Academy, about 10 min. Which Claude model fits which kind of task, and how each one draws on your rate limit.
Claude Academy · guardadoRole courses
5Claude Platform 101
About 90 min. The building blocks you’ll choose between, from the first API call through the agent loop, tool use, extended thinking, built-in tools, skills, Model Context Protocol (MCP), context management, and managed agents.
6Claude Code 101
About 60 min. Hands-on time in the tool your build team will use: the explore-plan-code-commit workflow, CLAUDE.md, subagents, skills, and hooks.
7Introduction to Model Context Protocol
About 60 min. How Claude reaches a customer’s systems through MCP servers, tools, resources, and prompts.
8Introduction to subagents
About 20 min. When to split work across subagents and how to design them, which affects how you structure a multi-agent build.
9Product Foundations
About 40 min. The Claude products, and how to match a deployment path to a client’s infrastructure.
10Deployment Architecture
About 40 min. The four deployment paths, feature parity, proxies and gateway patterns, and data residency.
11Delivery Methodology
About 40 min. Qualifying a use case, designing a pilot, capturing a baseline, and planning for adoption and risk.
Where next
Recommended next step
Prepare for Claude Certified Architect - Foundations
The exam is the credential this path starts you toward, and it counts toward partner tier in the Claude Partner Network.
- Take the prep courses.They pick up where this path ends.
- Register for the exam.The certification page has the exam guide and how to register.
After that
Is your team new to the Claude Partner Network? Partner Basecamp has about 2.5 hours of pre-work and two live days. Join Partner Basecamp.
Go deeper
Optional. Related courses and tutorials that don’t count toward the path, for when you want to go further.