Exa Search

Requires API key: Get one at https://dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys
Header:
x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY

Use

POST https://api.exa.ai/search

for semantic web retrieval, ranked results, and optional result-level extraction in one raw HTTP call. Start with

type: "auto"

for general retrieval. Add

contents

only when the caller needs page text, highlights, summaries, freshness-controlled crawling, subpages, or extracted links.

Quick Start (cURL)

Basic search

bash

curl -sS -X POST "https://api.exa.ai/search" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "query": "latest developments in LLMs",
    "type": "auto",
    "numResults": 10
  }'

Search with highlights

bash

curl -sS -X POST "https://api.exa.ai/search" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "query": "latest developments in LLMs",
    "type": "auto",
    "numResults": 5,
    "contents": {
      "highlights": true
    }
  }'

With filters and freshness

bash

curl -sS -X POST "https://api.exa.ai/search" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "query": "AI regulation policy updates",
    "type": "auto",
    "category": "news",
    "numResults": 10,
    "includeDomains": ["reuters.com", "bbc.com"],
    "startPublishedDate": "2025-01-01",
    "contents": {
      "text": {
        "maxCharacters": 2000
      },
      "maxAgeHours": 24,
      "livecrawlTimeout": 12000
    }
  }'

Deep search

bash

curl -sS -X POST "https://api.exa.ai/search" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "query": "map the major technical and commercial tradeoffs in sodium-ion batteries for grid storage",
    "type": "deep",
    "numResults": 8
  }'

Endpoint

text

POST https://api.exa.ai/search

Authentication:

x-api-key: <API_KEY>

header. Exa also accepts

Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY>

, but prefer

x-api-key

in cURL examples for consistency.

Use this endpoint when the agent needs search results. If the agent already has URLs and only needs extraction, use

POST /contents

instead.

Parameters

Core request parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
`query`	string	Yes	-	Natural-language search query. Long, semantically rich descriptions work well.
`type`	string	No	`auto`	Search method: `auto` , `fast` , `instant` , `deep-lite` , `deep` , or `deep-reasoning` .
`numResults`	integer	No	`10`	Number of results to return. Use small values for agent loops; maximum is 100.
`category`	string	No	-	Specialized result type: `company` , `people` , `research paper` , `news` , `personal site` , or `financial report` .
`includeDomains`	string[]	No	-	Only return results from these domains, paths, or wildcard patterns. Max 1200.
`excludeDomains`	string[]	No	-	Exclude these domains, paths, or wildcard patterns. Max 1200.
`startPublishedDate`	string	No	-	ISO 8601 lower bound for result publication date.
`endPublishedDate`	string	No	-	ISO 8601 upper bound for result publication date.
`userLocation`	string	No	-	Two-letter ISO country code such as `US` or `GB` .
`moderation`	boolean	No	`false`	Filter unsafe content from results.
`additionalQueries`	string[]	No	-	Extra query variants for deep-search variants. Use alongside the main `query` .
`systemPrompt`	string	No	-	Instructions for synthesized output and deep-search planning, such as source preferences.
`outputSchema`	object	No	-	JSON Schema controlling `output.content` . Adds synthesized output and grounding.
`stream`	boolean	No	`false`	If `true` , returns SSE instead of a single JSON response.
`compliance`	string	No	-	Enterprise-only compliance mode, such as `hipaa` , when enabled for the account.

Content parameters nested under

contents

/search

text

highlights

, and

summary

must be nested under

contents

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
`contents.text`	boolean or object	No	-	Return full page text as markdown. Object form supports `maxCharacters` , `includeHtmlTags` , `verbosity` , `includeSections` , and `excludeSections` .
`contents.highlights`	boolean or object	No	-	Return query-relevant excerpts. Prefer `true` for agent workflows unless a fixed character budget is required.
`contents.summary`	boolean or object	No	-	Return per-result LLM summaries. Use sparingly because each result adds synthesis work.
`contents.maxAgeHours`	integer	No	-	Freshness control. `0` always live crawls; `-1` uses cache only; omit for default cache-first behavior with crawl fallback.
`contents.livecrawlTimeout`	integer	No	`10000`	Timeout for live crawling in milliseconds. Use `10000` to `15000` for most freshness-sensitive calls.
`contents.subpages`	integer	No	`0`	Number of linked subpages to crawl per result.
`contents.subpageTarget`	string or string[]	No	-	Terms used to prioritize which subpages matter, such as `["api", "pricing"]` .
`contents.extras.links`	integer	No	`0`	Number of links to extract from each result page.
`contents.extras.imageLinks`	integer	No	`0`	Number of image URLs to extract from each result page.

Text object options

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`maxCharacters`	integer	-	Character limit for returned text. Use this instead of `tokensNum` .
`includeHtmlTags`	boolean	`false`	Preserve HTML tags in output.
`verbosity`	string	`compact`	`compact` , `standard` , or `full` . Pair fresh section-aware extraction with `contents.maxAgeHours: 0` .
`includeSections`	string[]	-	Only include selected sections: `header` , `navigation` , `banner` , `body` , `sidebar` , `footer` , `metadata` .
`excludeSections`	string[]	-	Exclude selected sections from the same section list.

Highlights object options

Prefer

contents.highlights: true

for the highest-quality default. Only use object form when the agent needs a custom focus or budget.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`query`	string	-	Custom query guiding which excerpts are returned.
`maxCharacters`	integer	-	Cap highlight characters per URL. Omit unless the caller has a strict budget.

Summary object options

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`query`	string	-	Custom query for the summary.
`schema`	object	-	JSON Schema for structured per-result summaries.

Search Types

type

controls the retrieval and synthesis mode. Pick the mode for the workflow, not just the output format.

outputSchema

can be used with any search type; use deeper modes when the search process itself needs more planning, synthesis, or reasoning.

Type	Best for	Tradeoff
`auto`	General default search and most new integrations	Balances speed and quality without requiring the caller to tune retrieval strategy.
`fast`	Low-latency agent loops and product paths	Faster than `auto` ; use when responsiveness matters more than maximum reasoning depth.
`instant`	Real-time UI, chat, voice, and autocomplete-style paths	Lowest latency path; use for quick retrieval rather than deep synthesis.
`deep-lite`	Lightweight research or synthesis	Adds more planning and synthesis than `auto` while staying lighter than full `deep` .
`deep`	Multi-step research, comparisons, and synthesis-heavy retrieval	Higher latency; better when the query needs exploration across several sources.
`deep-reasoning`	Hard research tasks with high ambiguity or complex tradeoffs	Highest latency and reasoning depth.

Use

auto

unless latency or reasoning depth is the primary constraint. Use

fast

instant

for time-sensitive calls. Use

deep

deep-lite

, or

deep-reasoning

when the query needs multi-step source discovery, comparison, or synthesis.

Mode-only examples

json

{
  "query": "recent product launches from major AI chip companies",
  "type": "fast",
  "numResults": 5
}

json

{
  "query": "compare competing explanations for the recent rise in grid-scale battery deployments",
  "type": "deep",
  "numResults": 8
}

Structured Output

Use

systemPrompt

for behavior and

outputSchema

for shape.

bash

curl -sS -X POST "https://api.exa.ai/search" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "query": "compare the latest frontier AI model releases",
    "type": "deep",
    "systemPrompt": "Prefer official sources and avoid duplicate results.",
    "outputSchema": {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "models": {
          "type": "array",
          "items": {
            "type": "object",
            "properties": {
              "name": { "type": "string" },
              "notable_claims": {
                "type": "array",
                "items": { "type": "string" }
              }
            },
            "required": ["name", "notable_claims"]
          }
        }
      },
      "required": ["models"]
    },
    "contents": {
      "highlights": true
    }
  }'

Keep schemas compact and bounded. Do not add citation fields to the schema; grounding is returned separately in

output.grounding

Streaming

Streaming applies to synthesized output, so include

outputSchema

along with

-N

Accept: text/event-stream

, and

stream: true

. Without

outputSchema

, the endpoint returns the normal JSON search response even when

stream

true

bash

curl -sS -N -X POST "https://api.exa.ai/search" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: text/event-stream" \
  -H "x-api-key: $EXA_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "query": "recent grid-scale battery deployments",
    "type": "deep",
    "stream": true,
    "outputSchema": {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "summary": { "type": "string" }
      },
      "required": ["summary"]
    },
    "contents": {
      "highlights": true
    }
  }'

Treat streaming as SSE rather than JSON. Each

data:

frame contains an OpenAI-compatible chat completion chunk; read partial text from

choices[0].delta.content

and handle completion or error frames defensively.

Response Fields

Field	Type	Description
`requestId`	string	Unique request identifier.
`results`	array	Ranked result objects.
`results[].title`	string	Page title.
`results[].url`	string	Page URL.
`results[].publishedDate`	string or null	Estimated publication date when available.
`results[].author`	string or null	Author when available.
`results[].text`	string	Returned when `contents.text` is requested.
`results[].highlights`	string[]	Returned when `contents.highlights` is requested.
`results[].highlightScores`	number[]	Similarity scores for highlights.
`results[].summary`	string	Returned when `contents.summary` is requested.
`results[].subpages`	array	Nested result objects from subpage crawling.
`results[].extras.links`	string[]	Extracted links when requested.
`output.content`	string or object	Synthesized output when `outputSchema` is provided.
`output.grounding`	array	Citations and confidence labels for synthesized fields.
`costDollars.total`	number	Total request cost when returned.
`searchTime`	number	Search latency when returned.

Critical Pitfalls

Keep
```
text
```
,
```
highlights
```
, and
```
summary
```
inside
```
contents
```
on
```
/search
```
.
Do not send top-level
```
text
```
,
```
highlights
```
, or
```
summary
```
; that shape belongs to
```
/contents
```
.
Do not send
```
tokensNum
```
; use
```
contents.text.maxCharacters
```
to cap extracted text.

Do not use

useAutoprompt

numSentences

, or

highlightsPerUrl

in new requests.

Use
```
contents.maxAgeHours
```
instead of
```
livecrawl
```
.

Use documented categories only:

company

people

research paper

news

personal site

, and

financial report

Avoid invalid category/filter combinations.
```
company
```
and
```
people
```
do not support
```
startPublishedDate
```
or
```
endPublishedDate
```
.
```
company
```
supports
```
excludeDomains
```
;
```
people
```
does not, and
```
people
```
only accepts LinkedIn domains in
```
includeDomains
```
.
Pick one of
```
contents.highlights
```
,
```
contents.text
```
, or
```
contents.summary
```
by default. Stack modes only when the caller truly needs multiple views of each page.
Expect SSE only when
```
stream: true
```
is paired with
```
outputSchema
```
; otherwise
```
/search
```
returns its normal JSON response.

exa-search

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

Exa Search

Quick Start (cURL)

Basic search

Search with highlights

With filters and freshness

Deep search

Endpoint

Parameters

Core request parameters

Content parameters nested under
`contents`

Text object options

Highlights object options

Summary object options

Search Types

Mode-only examples

Structured Output

Streaming

Response Fields

Critical Pitfalls