The Claude Certified Associate – Foundations (CCAO-F) is for people who use Claude in their own work — operations, marketing, project management, HR, education and consulting — rather than people who build software. No coding is needed. This free guide explains what the exam covers and how to prepare.
The seven domains
- Output Evaluation & Validation — Check Claude's work before it reaches a customer, a report or a decision.
- Workflow Integration & Solution Design — Decide where Claude fits in a process — and where a person must stay in charge.
- Governance, Risk & Responsible Use — Use Claude safely: data, accuracy, bias, policy and accountability.
- Prompting & Task Execution — Write instructions that reliably produce useful business output.
- Product & Model Selection — Pick the right Claude product and model for the job.
- Configuration & Knowledge Management — Set Claude up with Projects, Skills and connectors so it works like your team.
- Troubleshooting & Optimization — Work out why output is weak and fix it systematically.
What the weightings tell you
The two heaviest domains — evaluating output (21%) and workflow integration (16%) — are about judgment, not prompt tricks: can you tell when Claude's work is good enough, and can you place it sensibly inside a real process? Together with governance (15%) they make over half the exam.
How to prepare
- Read the seven domain notes in this guide.
- Use Claude daily on real work tasks — and practise checking its output as seriously as you check a junior colleague's.
- Set up a Claude project for your own role (instructions, reference material, a repeatable task).
- Review Anthropic's current exam guide and sample questions before you book.
Want it guided? Our two-day CCAO-F workshop covers all seven domains in ten modules with a capstone project and a mock exam. Technical instead? See the CCAR-F study guide, or compare all four certifications.