Exa Search

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

Core Tools

websearchexa

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

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

Parameters:

getcodecontext_exa

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

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

Parameters:

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 websearchexa 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 getcodecontext_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