| name | exa-search |
| description | Use Exa MCP for current web, code/docs, company, people, and page-fetch research. Prefer current hosted tool schemas and note deprecated tools. |
Exa MCP Search
Use this skill when online search, page fetch, code/docs lookup, company research, people research, or Exa MCP parameter checks are needed.
Current Source Of Truth
- Hosted MCP endpoint:
https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp
- Official source:
exa-labs/exa-mcp-server
- Current npm package checked:
exa-mcp-server@3.2.1
- Tool schemas can change. Before adding new parameters, verify with:
mcporter list 'https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?tools=web_search_exa,web_search_advanced_exa,web_fetch_exa' --schema
Tool Choice
| Need | Prefer | Notes |
|---|
| General current web search | web_search_exa | Simple search. Only query and numResults. |
| Filtered search, dates, domains, categories, summaries, highlights, subpages | web_search_advanced_exa | Enable explicitly in tools=. Use this for company/people/papers/news filters. |
| Read known URLs fully | web_fetch_exa | Use after search when highlights are insufficient. |
| Code examples/docs | web_search_exa | get_code_context_exa still exists but is deprecated. |
| Company research | web_search_advanced_exa with category:"company" | company_research_exa still exists but is deprecated. |
| People/profiles | web_search_advanced_exa with category:"people" | people_search_exa still exists but is deprecated. |
Core Parameters
web_search_exa
query required: semantically rich natural-language query. Can include category:company or category:people.numResults optional: default 10.- No
type, livecrawl, contextMaxCharacters, or tokensNum on current hosted schema.
{"query":"latest AI safety research June 2026","numResults":10}
web_search_advanced_exa
query required.- Common optional filters:
numResults, type (auto | fast | instant), category, includeDomains, excludeDomains, startPublishedDate, endPublishedDate, startCrawlDate, endCrawlDate, includeText, excludeText, userLocation, moderation, additionalQueries.
- Content controls:
textMaxCharacters, contextMaxCharacters, enableSummary, summaryQuery, enableHighlights, highlightsMaxCharacters, highlightsQuery, maxAgeHours, livecrawlTimeout, subpages, subpageTarget.
- Categories include
company, research paper, news, pdf, github, personal site, people, financial report.
{
"query":"Anthropic funding valuation 2026",
"category":"news",
"includeDomains":["techcrunch.com","bloomberg.com"],
"startPublishedDate":"2026-01-01",
"numResults":10,
"type":"auto",
"enableHighlights":true
}
web_fetch_exa
urls required: array of URLs. A single string may also be accepted by the server.maxCharacters optional: default 3000.
{"urls":["https://docs.exa.ai/reference"],"maxCharacters":5000}
Deprecated But Still Available
get_code_context_exa: use web_search_exa instead. Current schema is query, numResults; old tokensNum is obsolete.company_research_exa: use web_search_advanced_exa with category:"company" instead. Schema is companyName, numResults; default 3.people_search_exa: use web_search_advanced_exa with category:"people" instead.crawling_exa: use web_fetch_exa instead.deep_search_exa: use web_search_advanced_exa instead; may require user-provided Exa API key and may not register on anonymous hosted MCP.deep_researcher_start / deep_researcher_check: deprecated; use Exa Research API directly when needed.
Invocation Examples
URL="https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?tools=web_search_exa,web_search_advanced_exa,web_fetch_exa"
npx -y mcporter call "$URL.web_search_exa" query="latest AI safety research" numResults:=10
npx -y mcporter call "$URL.web_search_advanced_exa" query="AI infrastructure startups" category=company numResults:=20
npx -y mcporter call "$URL.web_fetch_exa" urls:='["https://docs.exa.ai/reference"]' maxCharacters:=5000
For mcporter call --http-url style, keep JSON args aligned with the same schemas.
Research Practice
- For simple lookup, run one targeted
web_search_exa call.
- For dated/current questions, calculate exact date ranges first and pass
startPublishedDate / endPublishedDate through web_search_advanced_exa.
- For source-heavy tasks, fetch only the best URLs with
web_fetch_exa; do not dump raw results into the final answer.
- For company/people/paper/news workflows, prefer
web_search_advanced_exa categories rather than deprecated specialized tools.
- Mention source uncertainty when Exa returns sparse, conflicting, or old results.
References
- Tool fields:
references/exa-tools.md
