Exa Tool

Exa MCP Tool

This skill provides access to Exa's powerful search and research capabilities through the Exa MCP server.

Available Tools

General Purpose

Specialized Wrappers

Full Tool List (via exa-search)

All tools from the Exa MCP server are available:

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | web_search_exa | Search the web for any topic, get clean content | | web_search_advanced_exa | Advanced search with filters (domains, dates, content options) | | get_code_context_exa | Find code examples, documentation, programming solutions | | crawling_exa | Get full content of a specific webpage from a known URL | | company_research_exa | Research any company for business information and news | | people_search_exa | Find people and their professional profiles | | deep_researcher_start | Start an AI research agent that writes detailed reports | | deep_researcher_check | Check status and get results from deep research task |

Setup

1. Get your Exa API key from https://dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys

2. Set the environment variable:

   export EXA_API_KEY="your_exa_api_key_here"
   

Or add to your shell profile (~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc):

   export EXA_API_KEY="your_exa_api_key_here"
   

Or create a .env file in your workspace:

   echo "EXA_API_KEY=your_exa_api_key_here" > ~/.openclaw/workspace/.env
   source ~/.openclaw/workspace/.env
   

3. Restart OpenClaw to load the skill:

   openclaw gateway restart
   

Usage Examples

Basic Web Search

exa-web-search '{"query":"Step-3.5 Flash benchmarks"}'

Advanced Search with Filters

exa-search web_search_advanced_exa '{
  "query": "OpenClaw AI",
  "count": 10,
  "freshness": "pw",
  "includeDomains": ["github.com", "docs.openclaw.ai"]
}'

Code Search

exa-search get_code_context_exa '{
  "query": "OpenClaw agent implementation",
  "count": 5
}'

Crawl Specific URL

exa-search crawling_exa '{
  "url": "https://docs.openclaw.ai/",
  "maxPages": 10
}'

Company Research

exa-search company_research_exa '{
  "company": "OpenClaw",
  "includeNews": true,
  "newsDays": 30
}'

People Search

exa-search people_search_exa '{
  "query": "Phil openclaw creator",
  "count": 10
}'

Deep Research (Two-Step)

# Start research
TASK_ID=$(exa-search deep_researcher_start '{
  "query": "Current state of AI agents in 2026",
  "maxSources": 20
}' | jq -r '.taskId')
Check status (poll until complete)
while true; do
  exa-search deep_researcher_check '{"taskId":"'"$TASK_ID"'"}'
  sleep 5
done

Output Format

All tools return JSON with the Exa MCP response structure. The actual content is in the result field, which varies by tool but typically includes:

Example web search output:

{
  "content": [
    {
      "title": "Step 3.5 Flash - MathArena",
      "url": "https://matharena.ai/models/stepfun_3_5_flash",
      "text": "Step 3.5 Flash benchmarks and performance metrics..."
    }
  ]
}

Using in OpenClaw Agents

Agents can use these tools directly:

// In an agent session
/exec exa-search web_search_exa '{"query":"latest news"}'
// Or via API
{
  "sessionTarget": "isolated",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "agentTurn",
    "message": "Search for recent AI developments using exa-search"
  }
}

Notes

Troubleshooting

"EXA_API_KEY not set"

"406 Not Acceptable"

Empty or no results

References

1. Get your Exa API key from https://dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys

2. Set the environment variable:

   export EXA_API_KEY="your_exa_api_key_here"
   

Or add to your shell profile (~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc):

   export EXA_API_KEY="your_exa_api_key_here"
   

Or create a .env file in your workspace:

   echo "EXA_API_KEY=your_exa_api_key_here" > ~/.openclaw/workspace/.env
   source ~/.openclaw/workspace/.env
   

3. Restart OpenClaw to load the skill:

   openclaw gateway restart