Two halves, one program

Anthropic's learning program has a free half and a paid half. This page is the free half - a catalog of self-paced courses covering Claude, Claude Code, the Platform and API, MCP, agent skills, and AI fluency, gathered into Claude Academy at academy.claude.com. The paid half is four proctored exams, covered on Claude certification; the schedule that gets you from this catalog to one of them is the Claude prep plan.

Claude Academy launched on 20 August 2026 as the official learning hub for Claude, replacing the previous Skilljar-hosted Anthropic Academy.- what changed, in one line

If you followed a course link from anywhere older than that - including earlier versions of this article - it pointed at anthropic.skilljar.com. Those courses now live under academy.claude.com/courses. Two things matter if you were already partway through: certificates earned through Skilljar remain valid, and Anthropic provides a migration path for previous learners, so past completions are not lost.

The two halves are genuinely independent. Nothing in the catalog is a prerequisite for any exam, and no exam requires you to have completed a single course - Anthropic's exam guides say plainly that recommended experience is advisory and the credential is awarded on exam performance alone. So treat this page as the study, and the credential as an optional, separate purchase.

This page is the reading list. If you want the map of the building first - how the Academy is organised, and what a course, a tutorial, a use case, and a webinar each are - start with What is Claude Academy? and come back here for the courses.

The route 01 · Learn - this page 02 · Prepare for the exam 03 · Get certified →

Claude Academy: the catalog

Claude Academy is Anthropic's free training catalog at academy.claude.com/courses - browsable without an account, with badges and certificates for anyone who signs in, no paid plan required. What the Academy is, how its courses, tutorials, use cases, and webinars differ, and how it is organised by product is covered in What is Claude Academy?. This page does the narrower job: listing the courses with their real weight, so you can plan a schedule.

The catalog is organised by product and by skill rather than as one linear track. The four groups below are the Academy's own, with each course's real weight next to it:

Start your journey

  • Claude 101. Using Claude for everyday work tasks, the core features, and where to go next. 13 lessons, 1 quiz, 2.5 hr, completion badge.
  • Claude Code 101. Getting Claude Code into your daily development workflow. 12 lessons, 1 quiz, 1.5 hr, completion badge.
  • Introduction to Claude Cowork. The Cowork task loop, plugins and skills, file and research workflows, and steering multi-step work. 14 lessons, 1 quiz, 2.5 hr, completion badge.
  • Claude Platform 101. Building on the Platform from the ground up. 13 lessons, 1 quiz, 1.5 hr, completion badge.

Learn the products

Become AI fluent

The part of the Academy that outlasts any model release, and the reason Anthropic puts it front and centre: product features age, reasoning habits do not.

  • AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations. The core course, built on Anthropic's 4D framework - Delegation, Description, Discernment, Diligence. 14 lessons, 1 quiz, 4 hr, completion badge.
  • AI Capabilities and Limitations. How AI works, what it is bad at, and how to judge output. Not tied to any one product. 13 lessons, 1 quiz, 3.5 hr, completion badge.
  • Teaching AI Fluency. For instructor-led settings. 7 lessons, 1 quiz, 4.5 hr, completion badge.

The same framework is then applied to specific audiences in shorter courses: builders, creative work, educators, pK-12 educators, pK-12 train the trainer, nonprofits, small businesses, and students.

Build with the API

The three heavyweight courses - each an evening-study commitment across a week rather than an afternoon.

Anthropic has said it intends to expand the Academy with more personalised and interactive learning over time, so treat any list of course names - including this one - as a snapshot and browse the catalog for the current set.

Where to start

The catalog is a menu, not a curriculum - nothing in it tells you where to begin or when to stop. If you are not chasing a credential, three courses are the whole answer: Claude 101 (2.5 hr) if your work happens in the chat window, or Claude Code 101 (1.5 hr) if you write code, then AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations (4 hr) for the judgement half, and AI Capabilities and Limitations (3.5 hr) if you want to know when not to reach for AI at all.

Build while you learn. Use Claude on real work in parallel with the courses - the material lands better against tasks you actually have, and one small thing built end to end teaches more than the next course does.

If you are heading for a credential, the schedule is a separate page: the Claude prep plan - four phases, five steps, and one course stack per exam, costed in hours rather than weeks.

If you want the credential

The courses above are the study. If you want the credential, the next page is the Claude prep plan - it picks one course stack per exam out of this catalog, costed in hours, and ends where the exams begin. The exams themselves are a separate, paid thing, on Claude certification - codes, prices, eligibility rules, scoring, and renewal in full.

Three facts to know before you decide whether that page is for you:

  • Four exams exist - three Foundations credentials (Associate, Developer, Architect) plus one Professional above the Architect track.
  • They cost $99 to $175 per attempt, and nothing in this catalog is a prerequisite for any of them.
  • Registration is gated to Claude Partner Network organizations and expects a company email. Check that before you plan a schedule around a credential - the courses have no such gate.

Most people should stop at the study. Sit an exam when a client, an employer, or a partner listing asks for one, and not otherwise.

Next Prepare for the exam → The exams, in full → Open the catalog →

References