Exa Search MCP Server
Give your AI agents real-time, AI-powered web search and page fetching via the Exa Search MCP server.
Updated
What is Exa Search MCP?
The Exa Search MCP server is a Model Context Protocol server that gives AI agents AI-powered web search and page-fetching capabilities through Exa's search API. It lets a model retrieve up-to-date information from the live web and pull the contents of specific URLs, rather than relying only on its training data.
Exa offers a hosted remote server at https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp, so most clients can connect with just that URL — no API key is required to get started thanks to a free plan (rate-limited). For higher limits and production use, you can supply your own Exa API key. The server is also open source and can be self-hosted locally via the exa-mcp-server npm package (npx -y exa-mcp-server), in which case you set an EXA_API_KEY environment variable.
By default the server exposes web search and web fetch tools, with an optional advanced-search tool and several additional (legacy) research tools available for backwards compatibility.
Tools the Exa Search MCP server exposes
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| web_search_exa | Run a real-time AI-powered web search and return relevant, optimized results (enabled by default). |
| web_fetch_exa | Fetch and extract the contents of a specific URL for the agent to read (enabled by default). |
| web_search_advanced_exa | Advanced web search with finer-grained control over results (optional, off by default). |
Connect the Exa Search MCP server
Claude Code
- 1
Add the hosted Exa server
Run: claude mcp add --transport http exa https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp
- 2
(Optional) Raise rate limits
Append your Exa API key to the URL as a query param (e.g. ?exaApiKey=YOUR_KEY) to move past the free-plan limits for production use.
- 3
Verify and use
Run /mcp in Claude Code to confirm the exa server is connected, then ask it to search the web.
The hosted endpoint works with no API key on a rate-limited free plan.
Cursor
- 1
Open MCP config
Edit ~/.cursor/mcp.json (or use Cursor's one-click Exa installer).
- 2
Add the server
Add an mcpServers entry: { "mcpServers": { "exa": { "url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp" } } }
- 3
Enable in settings
Reload Cursor and enable the exa server under Settings > MCP, then call it from the agent.
Optionally add your Exa API key to the URL to lift free-plan rate limits.
Sample use cases
An agent needs current information beyond its training cutoff
It calls web_search_exa to pull fresh, relevant results in real time.
An agent must read a specific article or doc page
It uses web_fetch_exa to extract that URL's contents for grounding.
A scheduled monitoring agent tracks a topic or competitor
It searches the web on each run and acts on what changed.
Security & permissions
The hosted Exa Search MCP server uses no auth — you can connect to https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp without credentials and start on a rate-limited free plan. An Exa API key is optional and only used to raise rate limits for production; when supplied it is passed to Exa with each request. The agent's access is scoped to read-only web operations: running web searches and fetching the contents of public URLs. It does not read your private files or accounts. Self-hosting via npx exa-mcp-server keeps the API key in your own environment (EXA_API_KEY).
Using Exa Search MCP with Gamut
In a Gamut agent workflow, the Exa Search MCP server acts as the agent's live web-research tool. Gamut manages the connection to the hosted endpoint, so an event- or schedule-triggered agent (for example, a daily run that monitors a topic, enriches an inbound lead, or gathers fresh context before drafting) can call web_search_exa to pull current results and web_fetch_exa to read specific pages, then act on what it finds. Because the hosted server needs no auth to start, it is straightforward to wire into automated runs; add an Exa API key when you need higher throughput for production schedules.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Exa Search MCP server?
It is a Model Context Protocol server from Exa that gives AI agents AI-powered web search and page-fetching tools, letting them retrieve up-to-date information from the live web. You connect via the hosted endpoint https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp or self-host the open-source exa-mcp-server.
Is the Exa Search MCP server free?
Yes — the hosted server has a free plan with rate limits and requires no API key to get started. To lift those limits for production use, you add your own Exa API key, which uses Exa's usage-based, per-credit pricing.
How do I connect the Exa Search MCP server to Claude Code or Cursor?
In Claude Code, run: claude mcp add --transport http exa https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp. In Cursor, add an mcpServers entry pointing url to https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp in ~/.cursor/mcp.json (or use the one-click installer). No API key is needed to start.
Is the Exa Search MCP server hosted or self-hosted?
Both. Exa runs a hosted remote server at https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp, and the project is also open source, so you can self-host it locally with npx -y exa-mcp-server using your EXA_API_KEY environment variable.