Web Search (Exa)

Plain semantic web search — the everyday search_web you reach for first. No category, no domain restriction: describe what you're looking for and Exa returns the closest pages. Calls the Exa REST API through a local script; no MCP server needed, only an EXA_API_KEY.

This skill is self-contained — its client (scripts/exa_client.py) is vendored, so you can install just this folder.

Install

Get a key first at https://dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys, then:

bash
export EXA_API_KEY=your-key          # add to ~/.zshrc / ~/.bashrc to make it permanent

Just this skill (Claude Code):

bash
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/CodeAlive-AI/exa-skills /tmp/exa-skills
cp -r /tmp/exa-skills/exa-web-search ~/.claude/skills/exa-web-search   # user-level
#   …or  .claude/skills/exa-web-search  inside a project for project-level

That's the whole install — no other folders required. (Other agents: drop the exa-web-search folder wherever your agent discovers skills.)

Whole collection: clone the repo and point your agent at it — see the repo README.

Run it

bash
python scripts/web_search.py "<what you're looking for>" [-n N] [--text] [--json]

Examples:

bash
python scripts/web_search.py "how do vector databases handle deletes" -n 10
python scripts/web_search.py "best practices for prompt caching with LLMs" --text
python scripts/web_search.py "self-hosted analytics alternatives to Google Analytics" -n 12

Output is a Markdown list (title · date · snippet) ending in sources_reviewed: N. --text includes page content, --json gives raw results, -h lists all flags.

Write queries that describe the page

Exa is semantic, not keyword. Describe the page you want to find, not the keywords. "detailed blog post about X written by a practitioner" beats "X". Run 2-3 different angles (not synonyms) in parallel for coverage.

Handy flags when you need them:

• -c company|news|research paper|github|pdf|personal site|linkedin profile|financial report — focus a category without leaving this skill.
• --include-domains a.com,b.com / --start-published 2025-01-01 — scope by site or date.
• --text — pull page content when snippets aren't enough.

More than search (same vendored client)

bash
python scripts/exa_client.py contents <url> --text      # read a page's full content
python scripts/exa_client.py answer "<question>"        # a direct, cited answer
python scripts/exa_client.py similar <url> -n 10        # pages similar to a URL

Token isolation (for multi-search tasks)

For anything beyond 1-2 queries, dispatch a subagent per angle (use the Agent tool), have each run this script and return a compact list, then merge + deduplicate. Keeps raw search output out of your main context.

After you get results

• Treat results as similarity, not validation — skim and drop off-target hits before relying on them.
• Lead your answer with the finding; cite source URLs inline; prefer a table when fields are uniform.

Part of the Exa Skills collection. For specialized research (companies, people, papers, code, finance, personal sites, X) install the matching skill from the repo.