Exa Web Search Free

Exa Web Search (Free)

Neural search for web, code, and company research. No API key required.

Setup

Verify mcporter is configured:

mcporter list exa

If not listed:

mcporter config add exa https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp

Core Tools

web_search_exa

Search web for current info, news, or facts.

mcporter call 'exa.web_search_exa(query: "latest AI news 2026", numResults: 5)'

Parameters:

• query - Search query
• numResults (optional, default: 8)
• type (optional) - "auto", "fast", or "deep"

get_code_context_exa

Find code examples and docs from GitHub, Stack Overflow.

mcporter call 'exa.get_code_context_exa(query: "React hooks examples", tokensNum: 3000)'

Parameters:

• query - Code/API search query
• tokensNum (optional, default: 5000) - Range: 1000-50000

company_research_exa

Research companies for business info and news.

mcporter call 'exa.company_research_exa(companyName: "Anthropic", numResults: 3)'

Parameters:

• companyName - Company name
• numResults (optional, default: 5)

Advanced Tools (Optional)

Six additional tools available by updating config URL:

• web_search_advanced_exa - Domain/date filters
• deep_search_exa - Query expansion
• crawling_exa - Full page extraction
• people_search_exa - Professional profiles
• deep_researcher_start/check - AI research agent

Enable all tools:

mcporter config add exa-full "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?tools=web_search_exa,web_search_advanced_exa,get_code_context_exa,deep_search_exa,crawling_exa,company_research_exa,people_search_exa,deep_researcher_start,deep_researcher_check"

# Then use:
mcporter call 'exa-full.deep_search_exa(query: "AI safety research")'

Tips

• Web: Use type: "fast" for quick lookup, "deep" for thorough research
• Code: Lower tokensNum (1000-2000) for focused, higher (5000+) for comprehensive
• See examples.md for more patterns

Resources

• GitHub
• npm
• Docs

Exa Search Examples

Web Search Examples

Latest News & Current Events

mcporter call 'exa.web_search_exa(query: "latest AI breakthroughs 2026", numResults: 5)'
mcporter call 'exa.web_search_exa(query: "quantum computing news", type: "fast")'

Research Topics

mcporter call 'exa.web_search_exa(query: "how does RAG work in LLMs", type: "deep", numResults: 8)'
mcporter call 'exa.web_search_exa(query: "best practices for API design", numResults: 5)'

Product Information

mcporter call 'exa.web_search_exa(query: "M4 Mac Mini specifications and reviews")'
mcporter call 'exa.web_search_exa(query: "comparison of vector databases", type: "deep")'

Code Context Search Examples

Programming Language Basics

mcporter call 'exa.get_code_context_exa(query: "Python asyncio basics and examples", tokensNum: 3000)'
mcporter call 'exa.get_code_context_exa(query: "Rust ownership and borrowing tutorial")'

Framework & Library Usage

mcporter call 'exa.get_code_context_exa(query: "React useState and useEffect hooks examples", tokensNum: 2000)'
mcporter call 'exa.get_code_context_exa(query: "Next.js 14 app router authentication middleware")'
mcporter call 'exa.get_code_context_exa(query: "Express.js error handling best practices", tokensNum: 4000)'

Specific API & SDK Documentation

mcporter call 'exa.get_code_context_exa(query: "Stripe checkout session implementation", tokensNum: 5000)'
mcporter call 'exa.get_code_context_exa(query: "AWS S3 SDK upload examples Python")'
mcporter call 'exa.get_code_context_exa(query: "Discord.js bot slash commands")'

Debugging & Solutions

mcporter call 'exa.get_code_context_exa(query: "fixing CORS errors in Node.js Express")'
mcporter call 'exa.get_code_context_exa(query: "pandas dataframe memory optimization techniques", tokensNum: 4000)'

Company Research Examples

Startups & Tech Companies

mcporter call 'exa.company_research_exa(companyName: "Anthropic", numResults: 3)'
mcporter call 'exa.company_research_exa(companyName: "Perplexity AI")'
mcporter call 'exa.company_research_exa(companyName: "Scale AI", numResults: 5)'

Public Companies

mcporter call 'exa.company_research_exa(companyName: "Microsoft")'
mcporter call 'exa.company_research_exa(companyName: "NVIDIA", numResults: 5)'

Research Queries

# Find funding info
mcporter call 'exa.company_research_exa(companyName: "OpenAI", numResults: 5)'

# Recent news
mcporter call 'exa.company_research_exa(companyName: "Tesla", numResults: 3)'

Parameter Guidance

type parameter (web_search_exa)

• "auto" - Balanced search (default)
• "fast" - Quick results, less comprehensive
• "deep" - Thorough research, slower but more complete

tokensNum parameter (get_code_context_exa)

• 1000-2000 - Focused queries, specific examples
• 3000-5000 - Standard documentation lookup (default: 5000)
• 5000-10000 - Comprehensive guides and tutorials
• 10000-50000 - Deep dives, full API documentation

numResults parameter

• 3-5 - Quick lookup, specific answer
• 5-8 - Standard research (default for web: 8, company: 5)
• 10+ - Comprehensive research, multiple perspectives

Advanced Tools Examples (Off by Default)

Deep Search

# Comprehensive research
mcporter call 'exa-full.deep_search_exa(query: "AI safety alignment research comprehensive overview")'

# Multi-perspective exploration
mcporter call 'exa-full.deep_search_exa(query: "climate change solutions technology innovation")'

Advanced Web Search

# Search with domain filters
mcporter call 'exa-full.web_search_advanced_exa(query: "machine learning tutorials", includeDomains: ["github.com", "arxiv.org"])'

# Search with date range
mcporter call 'exa-full.web_search_advanced_exa(query: "AI developments", startPublishedDate: "2026-01-01")'

Crawling

# Extract content from specific URL
mcporter call 'exa-full.crawling_exa(url: "https://anthropic.com/news/claude-3-5-sonnet")'

# Get clean text from article
mcporter call 'exa-full.crawling_exa(url: "https://example.com/article")'

People Search

# Find professional profiles
mcporter call 'exa-full.people_search_exa(query: "Yann LeCun AI researcher")'

# Research individuals
mcporter call 'exa-full.people_search_exa(query: "Demis Hassabis DeepMind")'

Deep Researcher

# Start a research task
mcporter call 'exa-full.deep_researcher_start(topic: "quantum computing applications in cryptography", depth: "comprehensive")'

# Check research status (use taskId from start response)
mcporter call 'exa-full.deep_researcher_check(taskId: "abc123")'