Acquia Certified Drupal Back End Specialist Cheat Sheet
Exam Details: 120 minutes | 60 questions | 70% passing score | Drupal 10
This cheat sheet covers all seven domains of the Acquia Certified Drupal Back End Specialist exam, weighted by the official blueprint.
Domain 1: Fundamental Web Development Concepts (16%)
Core web fundamentals that underpin Drupal coding.
- HTML, CSS & JavaScript → Markup, styling, and client-side scripting; attach assets via
*.libraries.yml. - Object-Oriented PHP → Classes, interfaces, traits, namespaces, PSR-4 autoloading, dependency injection.
- Composer → Manage dependencies and the Drupal codebase (
composer require, version constraints). - Git → Version control workflows, branching, pull requests.
- Automated Testing → PHPUnit, Kernel, Functional, and FunctionalJavascript test types.
Domain 2: Drupal Core API (33%)
The heaviest domain — building and extending Drupal with core APIs.
- Routing & Menu API → Define routes in
*.routing.yml, controllers, access checks, menu links. - Form API → Build, alter (
hook_form_alter), validate, and submit forms;FormBase/ConfigFormBase. - Entity API → Content vs config entities, CRUD, entity queries, fields, bundles.
- Core services →
\Drupal::service(), dependency injection,*.services.yml, Plugin API, Block API, Cache API.
Domain 3: Debug Code and Troubleshooting (7%)
- Debugging → Xdebug, breakpoints, development tools,
dump()/dpm()via Devel. - Troubleshooting → Watchdog/logs, status report, clearing caches, isolating module conflicts.
Domain 4: Theme Integration (10%)
- Render API & JavaScript APIs → Render arrays,
#theme, attaching libraries,Drupal.behaviors. - Twig → Syntax, filters,
{{ }}vs{% %}, template debugging, autoescaping.
Domain 5: Performance (14%)
- Site configuration performance → Caching pages/blocks, aggregation of CSS/JS, views caching.
- Custom code performance → Profiling, avoiding N+1 queries, lazy loading.
- Cache API → Cache tags, contexts, max-age;
cache.default, BigPipe, dynamic page cache.
Domain 6: Security (13%)
- Site configuration security → Text formats/filters, permissions, trusted host settings.
- Custom code security → Sanitization,
Html::escape(),Xss::filter(), parameterized queries, CSRF tokens. - Core security mechanisms → Access control, Form API token protection, security advisories/updates.
Domain 7: Leveraging Community (7%)
- Contributing → Issue queues, patches/merge requests, drupal.org project workflow.
- Coding standards → Drupal coding standards,
phpcswithDrupal/DrupalPracticestandards.
Tip: Domain 2 (Drupal Core API) is one-third of the exam — prioritize routing, Form API, Entity API, and services/DI.