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Claude Architect Foundations

Published by Pearson

Intermediate content levelIntermediate

Master the Claude Architect role with hands-on architecture labs to advance as an AI engineer

  • Covers all five core competency areas of the Claude Architect role.
  • Includes hands-on architecture exercises built around real-world production scenarios.
  • Coaches on building multi-agent systems, tool integrations, and automated code review pipelines using the Claude Agent SDK, MCP servers, and Claude Code.
  • Separates beginners from production-ready Claude Architects as you zero in on production architecture, enterprise deployment patterns, and tradeoff analysis.

The Claude Architect role is emerging as one of the most in-demand positions in AI engineering. This 4-hour intensive equips learners with the production architecture skills that define a Claude Architect. We cover the five core competency areas:

  • Building AI agents that use tools autonomously.
  • Designing tool integrations with the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
  • Configuring Claude Code for team development workflows.
  • Writing prompts that produce reliable structured output.
  • Managing context and reliability in production systems

Learners work through real-world scenario types including customer support agents, multi-agent research systems, and CI/CD pipeline integration.

What you’ll learn and how you can apply it

  • Architect multi-agent systems using coordinator-subagent patterns with the Claude Agent SDK, including how to break complex tasks into subtasks, manage sessions, and enforce business rules through lifecycle hooks.
  • Design tool integrations with MCP (Model Context Protocol), including structured error handling, controlled tool access per agent, and project-level configuration for team workflows.
  • Configure Claude Code for enterprise development, including instruction file hierarchies, custom skills, path-specific coding conventions, and integration with CI/CD pipelines.
  • Engineer production prompts with few-shot examples, JSON schema enforcement, and validation/retry loops that maintain data extraction accuracy at scale.

This live event is for you because...

  • You’re a solution architect or senior developer stepping into the Claude Architect role and need the production skills recognized by Accenture, Deloitte, Cognizant, and other Claude Partner Network members
  • You're building production applications with Claude and need to understand the architecture patterns Anthropic considers best practice, from autonomous AI agents to context management
  • You've used the Claude API or Claude Code and want to level up from familiarity to production mastery with hands-on expert guidance

Prerequisites

  • Familiarity with the Claude API and basic AI agent concepts
  • Working knowledge of Python or JavaScript/TypeScript to follow along with agent and tool integration demonstrations
  • Some experience calling the Claude API (sending messages, using tools, getting structured output).

Course Set-up

  • Claude Pro or Team subscription for Claude Code access. Node.js 18+ and Python 3.10+ installed locally
  • VS Code with the Claude Code extension installed.
  • https://github.com/timothywarner-org/claude-architect (contains reference architectures, practice scenarios, starter projects, and configuration templates)

Recommended Preparation

Recommended Follow-up

Schedule

The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.

Time for breaks and Q&A will be included throughout the course.

Lesson 1: Building AI Agents That Use Tools (50 minutes)

  • The agentic loop lifecycle: how Claude decides which tools to call, when to stop, and how to handle results across multiple steps
  • Multi-agent orchestration with coordinator-subagent patterns, including task decomposition and programmatic hooks for business rule enforcement
  • Live build: Customer support agent with backend tool integrations, prerequisite gates that prevent out-of-order operations, and structured escalation to human agents
  • Exercise: Design an agent architecture for a Developer Productivity scenario (5 minutes)

Q&A (5 minutes) Break (10 minutes)

Lesson 2: Tool Design, Integration, and Claude Code Workflows (50 minutes)

  • Tool interface design: why tool descriptions matter more than tool names, structured error responses, and scoped tool access per agent
  • MCP (Model Context Protocol) server configuration for team projects, including credential management and multi-server setups
  • Claude Code deep dive: instruction file hierarchies, path-specific coding rules, custom skills, and choosing plan mode vs direct execution
  • Exercise: Configure a Claude Code instruction hierarchy for a multi-team repository (5 minutes)

Q&A (5 minutes) Break (10 minutes)

Lesson 3: Prompt Engineering and Structured Output (50 minutes)

  • Writing precise prompts with explicit criteria, few-shot examples for ambiguous scenarios, and JSON schema enforcement through tool use
  • Validation and retry loops: feeding errors back to the model for self-correction, knowing when retries will help vs when they won't, and batch processing for cost savings
  • Live build: Structured data extraction system with schema enforcement, validation loops, and independent review passes
  • Exercise: Design an extraction schema with proper handling of missing data for a Structured Data Extraction scenario (5 minutes)

Q&A (5 minutes) Break (10 minutes)

Lesson 4: Context Management, Reliability, and Production Strategy (50 minutes)

  • Context preservation across long interactions, escalation design with structured handoffs, and error handling in multi-agent systems
  • Human-in-the-loop workflows, confidence calibration, and maintaining source attribution when combining information from multiple agents
  • Production readiness assessment: architecture review checklist, performance benchmarking strategies, and common pitfalls in enterprise Claude deployments
  • Your Claude Architect toolkit: architecture decision templates, practice scenarios, and production deployment checklists

Course wrap-up, final Q&A, and next steps (10 minutes)

Your Instructor

  • Tim Warner

    Tim Warner has been a Microsoft MVP in Azure AI and Cloud/Datacenter Management for 6 years and a Microsoft Certified Trainer for more than 25 years. His O'Reilly Live Training classes on generative AI, GitHub, DevOps, data engineering, cloud computing, and Microsoft certification reach hundreds of thousands of students around the world. He's written for Microsoft Press, presented at Microsoft Ignite, and contributed to several Microsoft open-source projects. You can connect with Tim on LinkedIn: timw.info/li.

Skill covered

Architectural Patterns