| name | web-search-exa |
| description | 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 the web with semantic understanding — not just keywords, (2) find research papers, news, tweets, companies, or people, (3) extract clean content from URLs, (4) find semantically similar pages to a known URL, (5) get code examples and documentation, (6) run deep multi-step research with a report, (7) get a quick synthesized answer with citations. NOT for: local file operations, non-web tasks, or anything that doesn't involve web search or content retrieval. |
Exa — Neural Web Search & Research
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
Setup
Add the MCP server to your agent config:
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 Reference
Default tools (available without API key)
| 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 |
Optional tools (enable via tools param, need API key for some)
| 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) |
web_search_exa
Fast general search. Describe what you're looking for in natural language.
Parameters:
query (string, required) — describe the page you want to findnumResults (int) — number of results, default 10type — auto (best quality), fast (lower latency), deep (multi-step reasoning)livecrawl — fallback (default) or preferred (always fetch fresh)contextMaxCharacters (int) — cap the returned content size
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"
}
web_search_advanced_exa
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 |
Examples
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 } }
}
company_research_exa
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" }
people_search_exa
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" }
get_code_context_exa
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" }
crawling_exa
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.
deep_researcher_start + deep_researcher_check
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.
deep_search_exa
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" }
}
}
}
}
}
}
Query Craft
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)
- Use
category when you know the content type — it makes a big difference.
- For broader coverage, run 2-3 query variations in parallel and deduplicate results.
- For agentic workflows, use
highlights instead of full text — it's 10x more token-efficient while keeping the relevant parts.
Token Efficiency
| 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.
When to Reach for Which Tool
| 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
