| name | exa-x-search |
| description | Search X/Twitter posts with Exa, filtered to x.com/twitter.com. Use for finding tweets or threads on a topic. NOTE: Exa's X coverage is limited (the tweet category was retired and X blocks crawlers), so results are often sparse — the skill is honest about this and suggests fallbacks. Runs a local script against the Exa API; no MCP server required. |
| license | MIT |
X / Twitter Search (Exa)
Search posts on x.com / twitter.com via Exa. Calls the Exa REST API through a local script; no MCP server needed, only an EXA_API_KEY.
⚠️ Read this first — coverage is limited
Exa retired the tweet category, and X blocks most crawlers, so X/Twitter content is sparsely indexed. This skill:
- filters results to x.com/twitter.com client-side (
--only-domains), so you never get off-domain noise dressed up as tweets;
- often returns few or zero results — that's expected, not a bug;
- prints a clear note and fallback suggestions when empty.
For reliable social/sentiment coverage, treat this as best-effort and use the fallbacks below.
Setup (once)
export EXA_API_KEY=your-key
Get a key at https://dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys. Shared details: exa-native-base.
Run it
python scripts/x_search.py "<topic / handle / thread>" [-n N] [--json]
Examples:
python scripts/x_search.py "Anthropic Claude launch reactions" -n 15
python scripts/x_search.py "founder thread lessons scaling startup" -n 15
The script forces --include-domains x.com,twitter.com and --only-domains x.com,twitter.com. If it returns sources_reviewed: 0, that's the coverage limit, not an error.
Fallbacks when X coverage is thin
- Find discussion about the topic on the open web (Reddit, HN, blogs, news):
python ../exa-company-research/scripts/company_research.py "<topic> reaction analysis commentary" -c news -n 15
python ../exa-native-base/scripts/exa.py search "<topic> discussion hacker news reddit" -n 15
- Read a known thread/profile directly (if you have the URL):
python ../exa-native-base/scripts/exa.py contents https://x.com/<user>/status/<id> --text
- Use a dedicated X/Twitter API for real-time, exhaustive social data — Exa is not the right tool for that.
After you get results
- Verify each result is actually a relevant x.com/twitter.com post (the domain filter guarantees the host, not the relevance).
- Be explicit in your answer about coverage: state how many on-platform posts you found and whether you fell back to the open web.
- Deliver: author/handle · post link · one-line gist; note the recency.
