Neural web search, content extraction, company and people research, code search, and deep research via the Exa MCP server. Use when you need to: (1) search t...
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Exa is a neural search engine. Unlike keyword-based search, it understands meaning — you describe the page you're looking for and it finds it. Returns clean, LLM-ready content with no scraping needed.
MCP server: https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp Free tier: generous rate limits, no key needed for basic tools API key: dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys — unlocks higher limits + all tools Docs: exa.ai/docs GitHub: github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server
Add the MCP server to your agent config:
# OpenClaw openclaw mcp add exa --url "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp"
Or in any MCP config JSON:
{ "mcpServers": { "exa": { "url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp" } } }
To unlock all tools and remove rate limits, append your API key:
https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?exaApiKey=YOUR_EXA_KEY
To enable specific optional tools:
https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?exaApiKey=YOUR_KEY&tools=web_search_exa,web_search_advanced_exa,people_search_exa,crawling_exa,company_research_exa,get_code_context_exa,deep_researcher_start,deep_researcher_check,deep_search_exa
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| web_search_exa | General-purpose web search — clean content, fast |
| get_code_context_exa | Code examples + docs from GitHub, Stack Overflow, official docs |
| company_research_exa | Company overview, news, funding, competitors |
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| web_search_advanced_exa | Full-control search: domain filters, date ranges, categories, content modes |
| crawling_exa | Extract full page content from a known URL — handles JS, PDFs, complex layouts |
| people_search_exa | Find LinkedIn profiles, professional backgrounds, experts |
| deep_researcher_start | Kick off an async multi-step research agent → detailed report |
| deep_researcher_check | Poll status / retrieve results from deep research |
| deep_search_exa | Single-call deep search with synthesized answer + citations (needs API key) |
Fast general search. Describe what you're looking for in natural language.
Parameters:
web_search_exa { "query": "blog posts about using vector databases for recommendation systems", "numResults": 8 }
web_search_exa { "query": "latest OpenAI announcements March 2026", "numResults": 5, "type": "fast" }
The power-user tool. Everything web_search_exa does, plus domain filters, date filters, category targeting, and content extraction modes.
Extra parameters beyond basic search:
| Parameter | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| includeDomains | string[] | Only return results from these domains (max 1200) |
| excludeDomains | string[] | Block results from these domains |
| category | string | Target content type — see table below |
| startPublishedDate | string | ISO date, results published after this |
| endPublishedDate | string | ISO date, results published before this |
| maxAgeHours | int | Content freshness — 0 = always livecrawl, -1 = cache only, 24 = cache if <24h |
| contents.highlights | object | Extractive snippets relevant to query. Set maxCharacters to control size |
| contents.text | object | Full page as clean markdown. Set maxCharacters to cap |
| contents.summary | object | LLM-generated summary. Supports query and JSON schema for structured extraction |
Categories:
| Category | Best for |
|---|---|
| company | Company pages, LinkedIn company profiles |
| people | LinkedIn profiles, professional bios, personal sites |
| research paper | arXiv, academic papers, peer-reviewed research |
| news | Current events, journalism |
| tweet | Posts from X/Twitter |
| personal site | Blogs, personal pages |
| financial report | SEC filings, earnings reports |
Research papers:
web_search_advanced_exa { "query": "transformer architecture improvements for long-context windows", "category": "research paper", "numResults": 15, "contents": { "highlights": { "maxCharacters": 3000 } } }
Company list building with structured extraction:
web_search_advanced_exa { "query": "Series A B2B SaaS companies in climate tech founded after 2022", "category": "company", "numResults": 25, "contents": { "summary": { "query": "company name, what they do, funding stage, location", "schema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "name": { "type": "string" }, "description": { "type": "string" }, "funding": { "type": "string" }, "location": { "type": "string" } } } } } }
People search — find candidates with specific profiles:
web_search_advanced_exa { "query": "machine learning engineers at fintech startups in NYC with experience in fraud detection", "category": "people", "numResults": 20, "contents": { "highlights": { "maxCharacters": 2000 } } }
Finding pages similar to a known URL: Use the URL itself as the query — Exa will find semantically similar pages:
web_search_advanced_exa { "query": "https://linkedin.com/in/some-candidate-profile", "numResults": 15, "contents": { "highlights": { "maxCharacters": 2000 } } }
Recent news with freshness control:
web_search_advanced_exa { "query": "AI regulation policy updates", "category": "news", "maxAgeHours": 72, "numResults": 10, "contents": { "highlights": { "maxCharacters": 4000 } } }
Scoped domain search:
web_search_advanced_exa { "query": "authentication best practices", "includeDomains": ["owasp.org", "auth0.com", "docs.github.com"], "numResults": 10, "contents": { "text": { "maxCharacters": 5000 } } }
One-call company research. Returns business overview, recent news, funding, and competitive landscape.
company_research_exa { "query": "Stripe payments company overview and recent news" }
company_research_exa { "query": "what does Anduril Industries do and who are their competitors" }
Find professionals by role, company, location, expertise. Returns LinkedIn profiles and bios.
people_search_exa { "query": "VP of Engineering at healthcare startups in San Francisco" }
people_search_exa { "query": "AI researchers specializing in multimodal models" }
Search GitHub repos, Stack Overflow, and documentation for code examples and API usage patterns.
get_code_context_exa { "query": "how to implement rate limiting in Express.js with Redis" }
get_code_context_exa { "query": "Python asyncio connection pooling example with aiohttp" }
Extract clean content from a specific URL. Handles JavaScript-rendered pages, PDFs, and complex layouts. Returns markdown.
crawling_exa { "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.07041" }
Good for when you already have the URL and want to read the page.
Long-running async research. Exa's research agent searches, reads, and compiles a detailed report.
Start a research task:
deep_researcher_start { "query": "competitive landscape of AI code generation tools in 2026 — key players, pricing, technical approaches, market share" }
Check status (use the researchId from the start response):
deep_researcher_check { "researchId": "abc123..." }
Poll deep_researcher_check until status is completed. The final response includes the full report.
Single-call deep search: expands your query across multiple angles, searches, reads results, and returns a synthesized answer with grounded citations. Requires API key.
deep_search_exa { "query": "what are the leading approaches to multimodal RAG in production systems" }
Supports structured output via outputSchema:
deep_search_exa { "query": "top 10 aerospace companies by revenue", "type": "deep", "outputSchema": { "type": "object", "required": ["companies"], "properties": { "companies": { "type": "array", "items": { "type": "object", "properties": { "name": { "type": "string" }, "revenue": { "type": "string" }, "hq": { "type": "string" } } } } } } }
Exa is neural — it matches on meaning, not keywords. Write queries like you'd describe the ideal page to a colleague.
Do: "blog post about using embeddings for product recommendations at scale" Don't: "embeddings product recommendations"
Do: "Stripe payments company San Francisco fintech" Don't: "Stripe" (too ambiguous)
| Content mode | When to use |
|---|---|
| highlights | Agent workflows, factual lookups, multi-step pipelines — most token-efficient |
| text | Deep analysis, when you need full page context |
| summary | Quick overviews, structured extraction with JSON schema |
Set maxCharacters on any content mode to control output size.
| I need to... | Use |
|---|---|
| Quick web lookup | web_search_exa |
| Research papers, academic search | web_search_advanced_exa + category: "research paper" |
| Company intel, competitive analysis | company_research_exa or advanced + category: "company" |
| Find people, candidates, experts | people_search_exa or advanced + category: "people" |
| Code examples, API docs | get_code_context_exa |
| Read a specific URL | crawling_exa |
| Find pages similar to a URL | web_search_advanced_exa with URL as query |
| Recent news / tweets | Advanced + category: "news" or "tweet" + maxAgeHours |
| Detailed research report | deep_researcher_start → deep_researcher_check |
| Quick answer with citations | deep_search_exa |
Docs: exa.ai/docs — Dashboard: dashboard.exa.ai — Support: support@exa.ai
No automatic installation available. Please visit the source repository for installation instructions.
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