Exa
Connects AI assistants to Exa AI's search capabilities, enabling web search, company research, URL crawling, LinkedIn search, and specialized code search across GitHub repos, documentation, and Stack Overflow for finding relevant coding context and e
What is Exa?
Exa is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that allows AI assistants like Claude, Cursor, and VS Code to connects ai assistants to exa ai's search capabilities, enabling web search, company research, url crawling, linkedin search, and specialized code search across github repos, documentation, and stack ...
Connects AI assistants to Exa AI's search capabilities, enabling web search, company research, URL crawling, LinkedIn search, and specialized code search across GitHub repos, documentation, and Stack Overflow for finding relevant coding context and e
This server falls under the Search & Data Extraction category on MCPgee, the world's largest MCP server directory with 33,000+ servers.
Features
- Connects AI assistants to Exa AI's search capabilities, enab
Use Cases
Maintainer
Works with
Installation
NPM
npx -y exa-mcp-serverManual Installation
npx -y exa-mcp-serverConfiguration
Configuration Details
claude_desktop_config.json
Performance
Response Metrics
Resource Usage
How to Set Up and Use Exa
The Exa MCP Server connects AI assistants to Exa's neural search engine, enabling real-time web search, full-page content fetching, and advanced filtered search across the open web — all from within a single MCP integration. Unlike keyword-based search APIs, Exa uses embedding-based retrieval to find semantically relevant results, making it particularly effective for research, company intelligence, code discovery, and keeping AI responses grounded in current information. Any MCP-compatible AI client — including Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code Copilot, and Gemini — can use this server to access live web data without custom scraping or API wrappers.
Prerequisites
- An Exa API key — sign up free at dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys
- An MCP-compatible client: Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code with Copilot, Windsurf, or similar
- Node.js 18+ and npx (for the local npm package method); or just a URL for the hosted endpoint
Get your Exa API key
Create a free account at dashboard.exa.ai and generate an API key from the API Keys section. Keep this key handy for the configuration step.
# Visit: https://dashboard.exa.ai/api-keysChoose: hosted endpoint (recommended) or local npm package
Exa provides a hosted MCP endpoint at https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp that you can point your client at directly — no local install needed. Alternatively, you can run the npm package locally with your API key passed as an environment variable.
# Hosted endpoint (no installation):
https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp
# Or with tools filter:
https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?exaApiKey=YOUR_KEY&tools=web_search_exa,web_search_advanced_exa,web_fetch_exaAdd to Claude Desktop (hosted)
For Claude Desktop, add the server using mcp-remote to bridge the HTTP endpoint. Replace YOUR_EXA_API_KEY with your actual key.
{
"mcpServers": {
"exa": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp"],
"env": {
"EXA_API_KEY": "YOUR_EXA_API_KEY"
}
}
}
}Add to Claude Code (CLI)
Use the Claude Code CLI to register the Exa MCP server with HTTP transport in one command.
claude mcp add --transport http exa https://mcp.exa.ai/mcpAdd to Cursor
Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json to use the hosted endpoint in Cursor.
{
"mcpServers": {
"exa": {
"url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp"
}
}
}Verify the connection
Ask your AI assistant to perform a web search. The assistant should use the web_search_exa tool and return results from the live web.
Exa Examples
Client configuration (Claude Desktop with local npm package)
Run the Exa MCP server locally using npx with your API key as an environment variable:
{
"mcpServers": {
"exa": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "exa-mcp-server"],
"env": {
"EXA_API_KEY": "your-exa-api-key-here"
}
}
}
}Prompts to try
Example prompts once Exa is connected to your AI assistant:
- "Search the web for the latest developments in MCP server tooling"
- "Fetch the full content of https://docs.exa.ai and summarize the key features"
- "Find recent GitHub repos about TypeScript MCP servers"
- "Research what investors are saying about Anthropic in 2025"
- "Search for Stack Overflow answers about React useEffect cleanup functions"Troubleshooting Exa
Search returns 401 Unauthorized
Verify your EXA_API_KEY is set correctly and has not expired. You can test it directly with: curl -H 'x-api-key: YOUR_KEY' https://api.exa.ai/search -d '{"query":"test","numResults":1}'
web_search_advanced_exa tool is not available
This tool is off by default on the hosted endpoint. Enable it by appending the tools parameter to the URL: https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?tools=web_search_exa,web_search_advanced_exa,web_fetch_exa
Claude Desktop shows 'server disconnected' on startup
If using mcp-remote, ensure Node.js 18+ is installed and accessible in PATH. Try running npx -y mcp-remote https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp in a terminal to confirm it works independently before relying on Claude Desktop to launch it.
Frequently Asked Questions about Exa
What is Exa?
Exa is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that connects ai assistants to exa ai's search capabilities, enabling web search, company research, url crawling, linkedin search, and specialized code search across github repos, documentation, and stack overflow for finding relevant coding context and e It connects AI assistants to external tools and data sources through a standardized interface.
How do I install Exa?
Install via npm with the command: npx -y exa-mcp-server. Then add the server configuration to your AI client's JSON config file (e.g., claude_desktop_config.json or .cursor/mcp.json).
Which AI clients work with Exa?
Exa works with all major MCP-compatible AI clients including Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code (GitHub Copilot), Windsurf, and Cline.
Is Exa free to use?
Yes, Exa is open source and available under the MIT license. You can use it freely in both personal and commercial projects.
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