exa-install-auth

name	exa-install-auth
description	Install the exa-js SDK and configure API key authentication. Use when setting up a new Exa integration, configuring API keys, or initializing Exa in a Node.js/Python project. Trigger with phrases like "install exa", "setup exa", "exa auth", "configure exa API key", "exa-js".
allowed-tools	Read, Write, Edit, Bash(npm:*), Bash(pip:*), Bash(pnpm:*), Grep
version	1.11.0
license	MIT
author	Jeremy Longshore <[e-mail]>
tags	["saas","exa","api","authentication","setup"]
compatibility	Designed for Claude Code, also compatible with Codex and OpenClaw

Exa Install & Auth

Overview

Install the official Exa SDK and configure API key authentication. Exa is a neural search API at api.exa.ai that retrieves web content using semantic similarity. Authentication uses the x-api-key header. The SDK is exa-js on npm or exa-py on PyPI.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ or Python 3.10+
• Package manager (npm, pnpm, yarn, or pip)
• Exa account at dashboard.exa.ai
• API key from the Exa dashboard

Instructions

Step 1: Install the SDK

Node.js (exa-js)

set -euo pipefail
npm install exa-js
# or
pnpm add exa-js

Python (exa-py)

pip install exa-py

Step 2: Configure the API Key

# Set environment variable
export EXA_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"

# Or create .env file (add .env to .gitignore first)
echo 'EXA_API_KEY=your-api-key-here' >> .env

Add to .gitignore:

.env
.env.local
.env.*.local

Step 3: Initialize the Client

TypeScript

import Exa from "exa-js";

const exa = new Exa(process.env.EXA_API_KEY);

Python

from exa_py import Exa
import os

exa = Exa(api_key=os.environ["EXA_API_KEY"])

Step 4: Verify Connection