exa-labs/exa-mcp-server

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Exa MCP for web search and web crawling!

Overview

Connect AI assistants to Exa's search capabilities: web search, code search, and company research. Exa is available as a native Claude Connector — no config files or terminal commands needed. 1. Open Claude Desktop (or ) and go to 2. Search for in the directory 3. Click to add it That's it! Claude will now have access to Exa's search tools. Add to your config file (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS, %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows): Open the MCP Store panel (from the "..." dropdown in the side panel), then add a custom server with: Add to ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json: Or add manually: open LM Studio, go to the Program tab, click , and add:

README

Exa MCP Server

Connect AI agents to Exa for web search, content fetching, and multi-step research.

Documentation · NPM Package · Get your API key

Installation

Connect to Exa’s hosted MCP server:

https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp

Or use a plugin when your client supports one.

Agent Plugin

This repository is an Agent Plugin. Install it with any compatible client.

Claude

Install from the Claude Plugin Marketplace, or run:

claude plugin install exa@claude-plugins-official

Codex / ChatGPT

Install via Plugins in ChatGPT, or run:

codex mcp add exa --url https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp

Other MCP Clients

Most clients can be configured manually with the standard mcpServers shape:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "exa": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp",
    }
  }
}

Available Tools

Default Tools

Tool	Description
`web_search_exa`	Search the web for any topic and get clean, ready-to-use content
`web_fetch_exa`	Read a webpage’s full content as clean markdown from one or more URLs

Optional Tools (enable via the `tools` parameter)

Tool	Description
`agent_run`	Run an Exa Agent for multi-step research, list-building, enrichment, and structured output
`web_search_advanced_exa`	Advanced search with filters, domains, dates, highlights, summaries, and subpage crawling

Enable tools by appending them to the MCP URL (this will replace the defaults, so include all you want):

https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?tools=web_search_advanced_exa
https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?tools=web_search_exa,web_fetch_exa,agent_run

Exa Agent requires authentication (OAuth or an API key).

Agent Skills

Skills live in skills/ and load with Agent Plugin installs. The Claude plugin in plugins/exa/ ships a copy of them; npm test fails when the copy drifts. Each package version bump on main publishes plugins/exa/ to the root of the claude-plugin branch, which Claude’s plugin directory reads. To publish a plugin-only change between releases, run the Publish Claude plugin workflow manually.

Skill	Path	Use when
`search`	`skills/search/`	Deep research, lead gen, competitive analysis, multi-step web investigation
`exa-agent`	`skills/exa-agent/`	Exa Agent runs, enrichment, structured output, Connect providers

Invoke from your client’s skill UI (or /skill-name where supported). MCP-only setups still get the tools; skills add orchestration on top.

Authentication

The hosted MCP server works anonymously with rate limits. For higher limits and access to Exa Agent, use either OAuth or an API key.

OAuth is preferred: most clients prompt you to sign in to Exa. To force the login flow (useful for shared connectors and plugins), use https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?login or https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp/oauth.

If you prefer, you can get an API key from the dashboard and pass it on the URL as ?exaApiKey=…. You can also send it as a Authorization: Bearer … header or an x-api-key header.

Built with ❤️ by Exa

View the full README on GitHub

Install

This server does not publish a one-line install command.

Open the repository installation guide New to MCP? Start with the mcpskill.org guide →

Configuration

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "exa": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp",
    }
  }
}