exa-web-search

A skill for searching the web, source code, documentation, and company information through Exa, an online search service. It requires Exa to be configured as an MCP server.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to research news and facts, find API examples and technical documentation, or gather information about companies.
Why use it?
It provides a documented way to find current information or code examples when the agent does not already have the needed material.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/jtsang4/efficient-coding/exa-web-search
Any agent
npx skills add jtsang4/efficient-coding --skill exa-web-search
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jtsang4/efficient-coding

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 41 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 686 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
Origin 98% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00041 $0.00686
Opus 5 $0.00020 $0.00343
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00137
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00069

Measured 2d ago against content hash 3c4aad053761, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

exa-web-search scanned grade B with 1 finding 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 2d 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.

Unrestricted tool accessmediumExcessive agency

A wildcard tool grant or "run any command" leaves no least-privilege boundary at all.

**Enable all tools:**
Origin

This is a copy

98% identical to exa-web-search-free — 14 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/exa-web-search/SKILL.md · 87 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 87 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Exa Web Search (Free)

Neural search for web, code, and company research. No API key required.

Setup

Verify mcporter is configured:

mcporter list exa

If not listed:

mcporter config add exa https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp

Core Tools

web_search_exa

Search web for current info, news, or facts.

mcporter call 'exa.web_search_exa(query: "latest AI news 2026", numResults: 5)'

Parameters:

  • query - Search query
  • numResults (optional, default: 8)
  • type (optional) - "auto", "fast", or "deep"

get_code_context_exa

Find code examples and docs from GitHub, Stack Overflow.

mcporter call 'exa.get_code_context_exa(query: "React hooks examples", tokensNum: 3000)'

Parameters:

  • query - Code/API search query
  • tokensNum (optional, default: 5000) - Range: 1000-50000

company_research_exa

Research companies for business info and news.

mcporter call 'exa.company_research_exa(companyName: "Anthropic", numResults: 3)'

Parameters:

  • companyName - Company name
  • numResults (optional, default: 5)

Advanced Tools (Optional)

Six additional tools available by updating config URL:

  • web_search_advanced_exa - Domain/date filters
  • deep_search_exa - Query expansion
  • crawling_exa - Full page extraction
  • people_search_exa - Professional profiles
  • deep_researcher_start/check - AI research agent

Enable all tools:

mcporter config add exa-full "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?tools=web_search_exa,web_search_advanced_exa,get_code_context_exa,deep_search_exa,crawling_exa,company_research_exa,people_search_exa,deep_researcher_start,deep_researcher_check"

# Then use:
mcporter call 'exa-full.deep_search_exa(query: "AI safety research")'

Tips

  • Web: Use type: "fast" for quick lookup, "deep" for thorough research
  • Code: Lower tokensNum (1000-2000) for focused, higher (5000+) for comprehensive
  • See examples.md for more patterns

Resources

Read the full file on GitHub · 87 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

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.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 87 lines · 41 tokens per session scan B 3c4aad053761

Subscribe to this mod's changes

exa-web-search is a skill published in the GitHub repository jtsang4/efficient-coding (2 stars, last pushed 7d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 41 tokens to every session and 686 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (unrestricted tool access). It is 98% identical to exa-web-search-free, differing in 14 lines, and is treated as a copy.