Passed the Claude certification exam in 6 hours of prep: 4 practical Claude Code lessons
naive-bandit · reddit · 2026-10-15
The author passed the Claude Certified Architect (Foundations) exam — 60 questions, 120 min, $125, pass mark 720/1000 — with 6 hours of prep using an unofficial guide. The real value is four hands-on lessons:
- Anything mandatory belongs in a hook, not a prompt: use PreToolUse to block calls (e.g., a Python hook preventing edits to .env, exit code 2 = block) and PostToolUse for formatting/linting; register in .claude/settings..
- Never let Claude review code in the session that wrote it — fresh sessions give noticeably more honest feedback.
- Use -p as a CI reviewer: git diff main | claude -p "Review this diff..." --output-format .
- Use Plan Mode for analysis-only tasks: Shift+Tab or /plan, read-only until you approve a plan — now his default in unfamiliar codebases.
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