Exa MCP Server

What it does (plain English)

Exa is a search engine built for AI. Its MCP server (a plug-in that gives Claude a new ability) gives Claude Exa’s search and a page reader that returns clean Markdown instead of messy HTML. Exa hosts it at https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp, and you can start without an account.

By default you get two tools. Two more can be switched on:

Tool	On by default?	What it does
web_search_exa	Yes	Search the web and get clean, ready-to-use content
web_fetch_exa	Yes	Read one or more URLs as clean Markdown
web_search_advanced_exa	No	Search with filters for domains, dates, highlights, summaries and subpage crawling
agent_run	No	Run Exa Agent for multi-step research, list-building, enrichment and structured output

Is it for you?

Pick it if Claude’s built-in search isn’t finding the right sources, or if you research a lot: market scans, finding companies that match criteria, gathering articles on a topic. Exa’s docs describe it as a way to improve the built-in web search in Claude.

You don’t need it if you only occasionally look things up. And if you need to log in to a site or click through a flow, use a browser tool such as Playwright MCP instead; Exa reads public pages.

What you can do with it

• Sharper search: “Use Exa to find recent articles comparing static site generators, and list the five most cited.”
• Read a page cleanly: “Fetch this URL with Exa and summarise the pricing section.”
• Filter by source and date: with web_search_advanced_exa on, “Find posts from the last 30 days on news sites only about EU AI rules.”
• Build a list: with Exa Agent, “Find 20 seed-stage climate startups in Europe with their website and founding year, as a table.” Agent requires sign-in or a key.
• Skills: the Claude plugin adds two skills, search (deep research and competitive analysis) and exa-agent (Agent runs and structured output).

How to set it up

1. claude.ai, Claude Desktop or Cowork (Exa’s official connector). In a new chat, select the plus button, choose Add connector, and search for Exa. Open it, select Connect to Claude, and authorize access.

2. Claude Code (Exa’s plugin):

   claude plugin install exa@claude-plugins-official

   Or type /plugin in Claude Code, search for Exa and install it. Start a new session afterwards.

3. Claude Code without the plugin. Exa’s docs give the server URL for “other MCP clients”; with Claude Code’s standard command for a remote server that is:

   claude mcp add --transport http exa https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp

   (This exact command comes from Claude Code’s MCP docs, not Exa’s.)

4. Turn on extra tools. Add a tools list to the URL. It replaces the defaults, so include everything you want:

   https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?tools=web_search_exa,web_fetch_exa,agent_run

5. Higher limits. Sign in with OAuth by connecting to https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?login, or get an API key from https://dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys and send it as an Authorization: Bearer header or x-api-key header.

6. Team and Enterprise admins can provision the connector for everyone through their identity provider using Exa’s Enterprise Managed Auth.

Watch out for

• Anonymous use is rate-limited. It’s fine for trying it out. Sign in before relying on it.
• Prefer headers over URL keys. Exa allows ?exaApiKey= in the URL, but a key in a URL is easy to leak in screenshots or shared configs. Use the header option.
• The tools parameter replaces defaults. If you set ?tools=agent_run alone, you lose search and fetch.
• Fetched pages are untrusted. Content from the open web can include instructions aimed at AI tools; treat it as information, not commands.
• What we checked. We did not install the hosted connector. The npm package exa-mcp-server (3.4.2) answered an MCP handshake in our sandbox with the two default tools, but Exa documents the hosted server, so we keep this profile marked untested.

Alternatives

• Firecrawl MCP for crawling whole sites or extracting structured fields from known pages.
• Context7 when the question is about a programming library’s docs.
• Playwright MCP for pages behind a login or that need clicks.