Exa Search

Drift-prone skill. Exa MCP tool names, parameters, and account limits can

change. Confirm the exposed tool surface and current Exa docs before relying

on a specific search mode, category, or livecrawl behavior.

Neural search for web content, code, companies, and people via the Exa MCP server.

When to Activate

• User needs current web information or news

• Searching for code examples, API docs, or technical references

• Researching companies, competitors, or market players

• Finding professional profiles or people in a domain

• Running background research for any development task

• User says "search for", "look up", "find", or "what's the latest on"

MCP Requirement

Exa MCP server must be configured. Add to ~/.claude.json:

"exa-web-search": {

  "command": "npx",

  "args": ["-y", "exa-mcp-server"],

  "env": { "EXA_API_KEY": "YOUR_EXA_API_KEY_HERE" }

}

Get an API key at exa.ai.

This repo's current Exa setup documents the tool surface exposed here: web_search_exa and get_code_context_exa.

If your Exa server exposes additional tools, verify their exact names before depending on them in docs or prompts.

Core Tools

web_search_exa

General web search for current information, news, or facts.

web_search_exa(query: "latest AI developments 2026", numResults: 5)

Parameters:

Param

Type

Default

Notes

query

string

required

Search query

numResults

number

8

Number of results

type

string

auto

Search mode

livecrawl

string

fallback

Prefer live crawling when needed

category

string

none

Optional focus such as company or research paper

get_code_context_exa

Find code examples and documentation from GitHub, Stack Overflow, and docs sites.

get_code_context_exa(query: "Python asyncio patterns", tokensNum: 3000)

Parameters:

Param

Type

Default

Notes

query

string

required

Code or API search query

tokensNum

number

5000

Content tokens (1000-50000)

Usage Patterns

Quick Lookup

web_search_exa(query: "Node.js 22 new features", numResults: 3)

Code Research

get_code_context_exa(query: "Rust error handling patterns Result type", tokensNum: 3000)

Company or People Research

web_search_exa(query: "Vercel funding valuation 2026", numResults: 3, category: "company")

web_search_exa(query: "site:linkedin.com/in AI safety researchers Anthropic", numResults: 5)

Technical Deep Dive

web_search_exa(query: "WebAssembly component model status and adoption", numResults: 5)

get_code_context_exa(query: "WebAssembly component model examples", tokensNum: 4000)

Tips

• Use web_search_exa for current information, company lookups, and broad discovery

• Use search operators like site:, quoted phrases, and intitle: to narrow results

• Lower tokensNum (1000-2000) for focused code snippets, higher (5000+) for comprehensive context

• Use get_code_context_exa when you need API usage or code examples rather than general web pages

Related Skills

• deep-research — Full research workflow using firecrawl + exa together

• market-research — Business-oriented research with decision frameworks