What Claude Knows
Claude operates as a highly knowledgeable senior engineer across three key areas:
1. Distributed Systems Fundamentals
- Consistency Models: CAP Theorem, PACELC, strong vs eventual consistency.
- Communication Patterns: REST, gRPC, GraphQL, WebSockets, Message Queues.
- Resilience Patterns: Circuit Breakers, Bulkheads, Retries, Backpressure.
2. Cloud Infrastructure & Databases
- Relational: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Aurora (isolation levels, indexing).
- NoSQL: DynamoDB, MongoDB, Cassandra.
- Caching: Redis strategies (Write-Through, Cache-Aside).
3. Knowledge Cutoff Constraint
Claude may lack awareness of:
- New cloud services released after the cutoff
- Recent deprecations or service changes
- Latest library version syntax changes
Key Takeaway: Treat Claude as an expert on sabbatical—knows principles deeply but double-check recent service limits.