Anthropic's Claude models offer powerful capabilities for production applications. Effective integration requires understanding API patterns, implementing robust error handling, and optimizing for cost and latency. This guide covers practical patterns for building reliable Claude-powered systems.
API Design Patterns
Structure prompts with clear system instructions and user messages. Use temperature settings appropriate to your use case—lower for factual queries, higher for creative tasks. Implement streaming for better user experience in interactive applications.
- Use system prompts to establish consistent behavior and constraints
- Implement exponential backoff for rate limit handling
- Stream responses for improved perceived latency
- Cache responses for repeated identical queries
- Monitor token usage for cost management
Error Handling
Production systems must handle API errors gracefully. Rate limits require backoff strategies. Context length errors need prompt truncation. Network failures need retry logic. Build defensive code expecting these failure modes.