Exa Search Skill

Trigger Conditions & Endpoint Selection

Choose Exa endpoint based on user intent:

• search: Need semantic search / find web pages / research topics

• contents: Given result IDs, need to extract full content

• findsimilar: Given URL, need to find similar pages

• answer: Need direct answer to a question

• research: Need structured research output following given output_schema

Recommended Architecture (Main Skill + Sub-skill)

This skill uses a two-phase architecture:

• Main skill (current context): Understand user question → Choose endpoint → Assemble JSON payload

• Sub-skill (fork context): Only responsible for HTTP call execution, avoiding conversation history token waste

Execution Method

Use Task tool to invoke exa-fetcher sub-skill, passing command and JSON (stdin):

Task parameters:

• subagent_type: Bash
• description: "Call Exa API"
• prompt: cat <<'JSON' | node .claude/skills/exa-search/exa-api.cjs <search|contents|findsimilar|answer|research> { ...payload... } JSON

Payload Examples

1. Search

cat <<'JSON' | node .claude/skills/exa-search/exa-api.cjs search { "query": "Latest research in LLMs", "type": "auto", "numResults": 10, "category": "research paper", "includeDomains": [], "excludeDomains": [], "startPublishedDate": "2025-01-01", "endPublishedDate": "2025-12-31", "includeText": [], "excludeText": [], "context": true, "contents": { "text": true, "highlights": true, "summary": true } } JSON

Search Types:

• neural : Semantic search using embeddings

• fast : Quick keyword-based search

• auto : Automatically choose best method (default)

• deep : Comprehensive deep search

Categories:

• company , people , research paper , news , pdf , github , tweet , etc.

2. Contents

cat <<'JSON' | node .claude/skills/exa-search/exa-api.cjs contents { "ids": ["result-id-1", "result-id-2"], "text": true, "highlights": true, "summary": true } JSON

3. Find Similar

cat <<'JSON' | node .claude/skills/exa-search/exa-api.cjs findsimilar { "url": "https://example.com/article", "numResults": 10, "category": "news", "includeDomains": [], "excludeDomains": [], "startPublishedDate": "2025-01-01", "contents": { "text": true, "summary": true } } JSON

4. Answer

cat <<'JSON' | node .claude/skills/exa-search/exa-api.cjs answer { "query": "What is the capital of France?", "numResults": 5, "includeDomains": [], "excludeDomains": [] } JSON

5. Research

cat <<'JSON' | node .claude/skills/exa-search/exa-api.cjs research { "input": "What are the latest developments in AI?", "model": "auto", "stream": false, "output_schema": { "properties": { "topic": { "type": "string", "description": "The main topic" }, "key_findings": { "type": "array", "description": "List of key findings", "items": { "type": "string" } } }, "required": ["topic"] }, "citation_format": "numbered" } JSON

Environment Variables & API Key

Two ways to configure API Key (priority: environment variable > .env ):

• Environment variable: EXA_API_KEY

• .env file: Place in .claude/skills/exa-search/.env , can copy from .env.example

Response Format

All endpoints return JSON with:

• requestId : Unique request identifier

• results : Array of search results

• searchType : Type of search performed (for search endpoint)

• context : LLM-friendly context string (if requested)

• costDollars : Detailed cost breakdown