Exa Search MCP

Suggested workflow: compare approaches with sources

Consider a builder investigating ways to connect an application to an external service. Define the question, required platform and acceptable publication dates, then ask for a short set of relevant sources. Review the candidates and fetch the pages that support the comparison. Keep each conclusion linked to a passage and distinguish vendor documentation from independent commentary.

Exa’s Search API documentation describes returned titles, URLs, dates and content options. Those fields help organise the evidence. For a decision that depends on an exact parameter or current limitation, open the underlying official page and check the relevant section. A search summary is a starting point for that verification.

Documented setup and tool selection

The official MCP guide documents the hosted endpoint at https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp, keyless access within rate limits, OAuth and API-key authentication. The repository also links client setup instructions. Choose the account and usage arrangement before making the connection part of a recurring team workflow.

The current tool list includes web_search_exa and web_fetch_exa. Advanced search is an opt-in tool with additional controls; agent_run adds multi-step research and requires authentication. An explicit tools URL parameter replaces the default selection, so include each intended tool and refresh the client’s discovered tool list after configuration changes.

Selection advice: discovery, context and evidence

Use discovery when the relevant sources are still being identified, then retrieve a selected URL for closer reading. Exa’s content documentation distinguishes relevant highlights, full text and generated summaries. Match the content view to the task: a narrow factual question needs a supporting passage, while reviewing a document’s argument may require wider context.

Keep the initial question specific and set a source budget. For an advanced search, check which date and domain controls the enabled tool exposes. For multi-step research, agree the desired output and usage limit first. Exa and a scraper such as Firecrawl have overlapping capabilities; compare them against your actual discovery and extraction requirements.

Proposed acceptance check

Prepare several questions with known authoritative sources and one open research question. Check source relevance, dates, accessible passages and whether the final answer’s claims match those passages. Record tool selection, authentication mode, usage, failures and the reviewer’s corrections. Score relevance and evidence quality separately so an attractive answer and a well-supported answer receive distinct evaluation.