Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
npx skills add exa-labs/exa-cursor-plugin --skill exa-best-practicesgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/exa-labs/exa-cursor-pluginWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/exa-labs/exa-cursor-plugin/exa-best-practices)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/exa-labs/exa-cursor-plugin/exa-best-practices"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/exa-labs/exa-cursor-plugin/exa-best-practices.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00037 | $0.00421 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00018 | $0.00211 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00007 | $0.00084 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00042 |
Grade A, and why
exa-best-practices scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 7d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
What it actually says
Exa Best Practices
Tool Selection
| Need | Tool | When |
|---|---|---|
| Web search | web_search_exa |
Current info, news, research, general questions, code examples |
| Read a URL | web_fetch_exa |
Extract content from a known URL |
Citation Standards
When using Exa search results, always cite sources:
- Inline citations: Every fact or claim should reference its source
- Source URLs: Include the actual URL, not just the title
- Sources section: End responses with a list of all sources used
- Never fabricate URLs: Only cite URLs that appear in search results
Search Quality Tips
- Natural language queries work better than keyword stuffing
- Be specific — include dates, names, versions when relevant
- Multiple queries with different phrasings improve coverage
- Adjust result count to match the depth needed (3-5 quick, 10-20 deep)
Getting Started
- Get your API key at https://dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys
- Add the MCP server in Cursor Settings → MCP
- Start searching with
/exa-searchor/exa-fetch
Troubleshooting
- Tools not available: Check if the Exa MCP server is installed. If
web_search_exaorweb_fetch_exaare not in your tool list, stop and request the user to: (1) run/exa-setupin Cursor to add the MCP server, and (2) go to Cursor Settings → Tools & MCP and make sure Exa is toggled on (green). - No results: Try rephrasing the query or broadening search terms
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 7d ago First seen · 41 lines · 37 tokens per session scan A 44db9324dcb3
exa-best-practices is a skill published in the GitHub repository exa-labs/exa-cursor-plugin (6 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 37 tokens to every session and 421 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.
Other skills, from other repositories
systematic-debugging
Use when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior, before proposing fixes.
local-ai-agents
Build local-first AI agents that run entirely on a developer workstation with Microsoft Foundry Local and Qwen function-calling models. Covers Small Language Models (SLMs), the OpenAI-compatible local endpoint, sandboxed local tools, local RAG with Chroma, local MCP servers, hybrid cloud/local routing, and the…
next-cache-components-adoption
Turn on Cache Components in a Next.js app and resolve the blocking routes it surfaces. Use when the user wants to enable, adopt, or migrate to Cache Components, flip the cacheComponents flag, work through a flood of blocking-prerender / instant validation errors, run the cache-components-instant-false codemod, or…
next-partial-prefetching-adoption
Turn on Partial Prefetching in a Next.js app and work through the insights it surfaces. Use when the user wants to enable or adopt Partial Prefetching, flip the partialPrefetching flag, opt routes in with export const prefetch = 'partial', audit Link prefetch={true} behavior, preserve existing prefetched UI with…
chronicle
Analyze Copilot session history for standup reports, usage tips, session search, and session reindexing. Use when the user asks for a standup, daily summary, usage tips, workflow recommendations, wants to search or find past sessions by keyword/file/PR, wants to reindex their session store, or asks about deleting…
babysit-pr
Babysit a GitHub pull request after creation by continuously polling review comments, CI checks/workflow runs, and mergeability state until the PR is merged/closed or user help is required. Diagnose failures, retry likely flaky failures up to 3 times, auto-fix/push branch-related issues when appropriate, and keep…