Exa - Neural Web Search

Powerful AI-powered search with LinkedIn, news, research papers, and more.

Setup

Set EXA_API_KEY in your environment (e.g. ~/.env.local):

bash

export EXA_API_KEY="your-exa-api-key"

Fallback: ~/.clawdbot/credentials/exa/config.json with {"apiKey": "..."}

Commands

General Search

bash

bash scripts/search.sh "query" [options]

Options (as env vars):

•NUM=10 - Number of results (max 100)
•TYPE=auto - Search type: auto, neural, fast, deep
•CATEGORY= - Category: news, company, people, research paper, github, tweet, pdf, financial report
•DOMAINS= - Include domains (comma-separated)
•EXCLUDE= - Exclude domains (comma-separated)
•SINCE= - Published after (ISO date)
•UNTIL= - Published before (ISO date)
•LOCATION=NL - User location (country code)

Examples

bash

# Basic search
bash scripts/search.sh "AI agents 2024"

# LinkedIn people search
CATEGORY=people bash scripts/search.sh "software engineer Amsterdam"

# Company search
CATEGORY=company bash scripts/search.sh "fintech startup Netherlands"

# News from specific domain
CATEGORY=news DOMAINS="reuters.com,bbc.com" bash scripts/search.sh "Netherlands"

# Research papers
CATEGORY="research paper" bash scripts/search.sh "transformer architecture"

# Deep search (comprehensive)
TYPE=deep bash scripts/search.sh "climate change solutions"

# Date-filtered news
CATEGORY=news SINCE="2026-01-01" bash scripts/search.sh "tech layoffs"

Get Content

Extract full text from URLs:

bash

bash scripts/content.sh "url1" "url2"

Related Search Tools

exa-plus specializes in neural search (people, companies, research). For other needs:

Tool	Specialty	Use When
exa-plus (this)	Neural web, GitHub, LinkedIn, papers	People/company search, academic research
valyu	Recursive turn-based research	`valyu research "query" --turns 5`
deep-research	Multi-query Tavily synthesis	`deep-research "query" --deep`
lev-research	Multi-perspective orchestration	`lev-research "query"`
lev-find	Unified local + external	`lev find "query" --scope=research`
brave-search	Quick web search	`brave-search "query"`
tavily-search	AI-optimized snippets	`tavily-search "query"`
grok-research	Real-time X/Twitter	`grok-research "query"`
firecrawl	Web scraping	`firecrawl scrape <url>`
qmd	Local session search	`qmd query "query"`

Exa's unique capabilities:

•✅ LinkedIn people search (CATEGORY=people)
•✅ Company research (CATEGORY=company)
•✅ Research papers (CATEGORY="research paper")
•✅ GitHub code search (CATEGORY=github)
•✅ Neural semantic search (not just keywords)
•❌ General web (use brave-search or tavily-search)
•❌ Turn-based refinement (use valyu)

Integration pattern:

bash

# 1. Find people/companies with Exa
CATEGORY=people exa search "ML engineer Amsterdam"

# 2. Deep research on findings
valyu research "machine learning hiring trends" --turns 5

See skill://lev-research for comprehensive research workflows.