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Agent skill

Exa Search

by BioTender-max in BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills

Web toolkit powered by Exa, tuned for scientific and technical content.

MITAuto-check: notesResearch & Science

Install Exa Search

skills CLI
$ npx skills add BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills --skill exa-search -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills exa-search --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/kdense/exa-search .claude/skills/exa-search && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
exa-search
GitHub stars
199
Token cost
~1.2k tokens
SKILL.md length
501 words
Files
6 (incl. scripts, references)
Skills in repo
23
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Web toolkit powered by Exa, tuned for scientific and technical content.

  • Works in 2 steps: category "research paper" biases… → include-domains with a scholarly…
  • The user needs to search the web
  • SKILL.md covers Routing — pick the right…, Setup and Files in this skill
  • Runs Python scripts from its folder; calls uv and pip; needs EXA_API_KEY

What it does

Exa Search is an agent skill from BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills. Web toolkit powered by Exa, tuned for scientific and technical content. Use this skill when the user needs to search the web or fetch/extract URL content. Covers: web search (semantic lookups, research, current info — with optional research-paper category and academic domain filtering) and URL extraction (fetching pages, articles, academic PDFs in batch). Use this skill for web-related tasks when the user wants high-quality search or scholarly filtering via category=research paper. Triggers on requests to search…

Its SKILL.md is about 1.2k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 8 other files, including scripts and reference files (for example `references/web-extract.md`, `references/web-search.md` and `scripts/exa_extract.py`). Compatibility notes: Requires exa-py Python SDK, an EXAAPIKEY, and internet access.

It sits in Research & Science, covering Web search. It works with Exa. The repository describes itself as: A curated collection of AI agent skills for biomedical research, covering genomics, proteomics, single-cell analysis, clinical AI, and protein design. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • The user needs to search the web
  • Fetch/extract URL content
  • Web-related tasks when the user wants high-quality search
  • Scholarly filtering via category=research paper

Example prompts

  • “/exa-search”

Requirements

  • Python 3
  • A credential in EXA_API_KEY
  • Compatibility (from SKILL.md): Requires exa-py Python SDK, an EXA_API_KEY, and internet access.

Workflow steps

2 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. category "research paper" biases retrieval toward scholarly sources.
  2. include-domains with a scholarly allowlist (arxiv.org, nature.com, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, etc.) restricts the domain pool.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 8cbdd18. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    Ships 2 files in scripts/ (Python), which the agent can run.

    Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

    • uv
    • pip

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    Links to these hosts (documentation or services it may open):

    • exa.ai
    • github.com
    • dashboard.exa.ai

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names these keys or tokens, usually read from environment variables:

    • EXA_API_KEY

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

  • Compatibility

    Requires exa-py Python SDK, an EXA_API_KEY, and internet access.

    From compatibility in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

Context cost

Exa Search loads about 1.2k tokens when it runs, and up to ~3.1k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 144 tokens; SKILL.md has 501 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~144
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.2k
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~3.1k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check: notes

The automated check noted patterns worth knowing about, such as sudo or a known installer.

  • NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:67
    First, check if a `.env` file exists in the project root and contains `EXA_API_KEY`. If so, load it:
  • NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:70
    dotenv -f .env run -- uv run --with exa-py python "$SKILL_PATH/scripts/exa_search.py" "your query"
  • NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:75
    If there's no `.env`, export the key for the session:

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); the scripts in this folder are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills at commit 8cbdd18, republished under its MIT licence (© BioTender-max). 501 words, ~1,230 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/exa-search/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 5 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
exa-search
description
Web toolkit powered by Exa, tuned for scientific and technical content. Use this skill when the user needs to search the web or fetch/extract URL content. Covers: web search (semantic lookups, research, current info — with optional research-paper category and academic domain filtering) and URL extraction (fetching pages, articles, academic PDFs in batch). Use this skill for web-related tasks when the user wants high-quality search or scholarly filtering via category=research paper. Triggers on requests to search, look up, fetch a page, or extract an article.
compatibility
Requires exa-py Python SDK, an EXA_API_KEY, and internet access.
license
MIT
metadata.skill-author
Exa
metadata.website
https://exa.ai
metadata.docs
https://exa.ai/docs

Exa Web Toolkit

A skill for web-powered research tasks backed by Exa: web search and URL extraction. Exa's index combines high-quality keyword and semantic retrieval, which makes it well-suited to scientific, technical, and conceptual queries.

Routing — pick the right capability

Read the user's request and match it to one of the capabilities below. Read the corresponding reference file for detailed instructions before running commands.

User wants to...CapabilityWhere
Look something up, research a topic, find current infoWeb Searchreferences/web-search.md
Fetch content from a specific URL (webpage, article, PDF)Web Extractreferences/web-extract.md
Install or authenticateSetupBelow
Decision guide
  • Default to Web Search for topic lookups, research questions, or "what is X?" queries. When the topic is scientific or technical, pass --category "research paper" to bias toward scholarly sources, and/or an academic --include-domains allowlist. See references/web-search.md for the two-pass academic strategy.
  • Use Web Extract when the user provides a URL or asks you to read/fetch a specific page. Prefer this over the built-in WebFetch for batch extraction (multiple URLs in one call) and for academic PDFs.
Academic source priority

For technical or scientific queries, prefer academic and scientific sources:

  • Peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings over blog posts or news
  • Preprints (arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv) when peer-reviewed versions aren't available
  • Institutional and government sources (NIH, WHO, NASA, NIST) over commercial sites
  • Primary research over secondary summaries

Two levers to steer Exa toward scholarly content:

  1. --category "research paper" biases retrieval toward scholarly sources.
  2. --include-domains with a scholarly allowlist (arxiv.org, nature.com, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, etc.) restricts the domain pool.

Combine both for strictly academic results. See references/web-search.md for the full pattern.

When citing academic sources, include author names and publication year where available (e.g., Smith et al., 2025) in addition to the standard citation format. If a DOI is present, prefer the DOI link.

Show full SKILL.md (199 more words)Show less

Setup

This skill uses the exa-py Python SDK. The scripts in scripts/ declare their dependencies via PEP 723 inline metadata, so you can run them directly with uv run without a separate install step:

bash
uv run --with exa-py python "$SKILL_PATH/scripts/exa_search.py" --help

If you prefer a persistent install:

bash
uv pip install "exa-py>=1.14.0"
Authentication

All commands read the API key from the EXA_API_KEY environment variable. Get your Exa API key at dashboard.exa.ai/api-keys.

First, check if a .env file exists in the project root and contains EXA_API_KEY. If so, load it:

bash
dotenv -f .env run -- uv run --with exa-py python "$SKILL_PATH/scripts/exa_search.py" "your query"

If dotenv isn't available, install it: pip install python-dotenv[cli] or uv pip install python-dotenv[cli].

If there's no .env, export the key for the session:

bash
export EXA_API_KEY="your-key"

Verify by running any script with --help — it will exit cleanly if the key is set and auth-check runs only when a real query is made.

Tracking header

Every script in this skill sets the x-exa-integration request header to k-dense-ai--scientific-agent-skills so Exa can attribute usage from the K-Dense AI scientific-agent-skills repo to this integration. Do not remove or rename this header when adapting the scripts.

Files in this skill

  • SKILL.md — this file (routing and setup)
  • references/web-search.md — detailed web search reference with academic strategy
  • references/web-extract.md — URL content extraction reference
  • scripts/exa_search.py — CLI wrapper around client.search_and_contents
  • scripts/exa_extract.py — CLI wrapper around client.get_contents

© BioTender-max, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 5 other files (scripts, references) in skills/kdense/exa-search of BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills.

  • SKILL.md
  • references/web-extract.md
  • references/web-search.md
  • scripts/exa_extract.py
  • scripts/exa_search.py
  • tests/test_exa_search.py

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 8cbdd18

Compare with similar skills

Exa Search next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Exa Search compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Exa Search this skillBioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills199—~1.2kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Exa SearchK-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills48k1 repos~1.6kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Web Research Search Tipsmalob/nix-config463—~2.4kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Exa Neural Search via MCPaffaan-m/ECC276k4 repos~1.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Exa SearchAI4Scientist/nano-scientist1282 repos~1.8kAutomated safety check: NotesNone
Web Search Exagooseworks-ai/goose-skills1.2k1 repos~3.4kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Works with

Categories

Questions about Exa Search

What does Exa Search do?

Web toolkit powered by Exa, tuned for scientific and technical content. Exa Search is an agent skill from BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills. Web toolkit powered by Exa, tuned for scientific and technical content.

When should I use Exa Search?

Exa Search fits situations like: the user needs to search the web; fetch/extract URL content; web-related tasks when the user wants high-quality search; scholarly filtering via category=research paper.

How do I install Exa Search in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills --skill exa-search -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/kdense/exa-search in BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills) into .claude/skills/exa-search in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Exa Search in Codex?

Run `npx skills add BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills --skill exa-search -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/kdense/exa-search in BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills) into .agents/skills/exa-search in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Exa Search in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills --skill exa-search -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/exa-search, .gemini/skills/exa-search, .github/skills/exa-search and .opencode/skills/exa-search in your project.

What does Exa Search need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Exa Search needs Python for the scripts in its folder, the command-line tools its instructions call (uv and pip) and credentials named EXA_API_KEY. Our summary lists: Python 3; A credential in EXA_API_KEY. Compatibility (from SKILL.md): Requires exa-py Python SDK, an EXA_API_KEY, and internet access..

Does Exa Search access the network?

SKILL.md names 3 domains. As links in the text: exa.ai, github.com and dashboard.exa.ai. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Exa Search safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found notes only (mentions a .env file), nothing it rates as a warning. It is not a guarantee. The check reads SKILL.md only: the scripts in the folder are not scanned, so read them before running anything.

What licence does Exa Search use?

Exa Search is published under the MIT licence (declared in SKILL.md). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Exa Search use?

About 1.2k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 4.9k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 1.8k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Exa Search?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Exa Search: Exa Search (K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills, 48k stars), Web Research Search Tips (malob/nix-config, 463 stars), Exa Neural Search via MCP (affaan-m/ECC, 276k stars) and Exa Search (AI4Scientist/nano-scientist, 128 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Exa Search?

BioTender-max (a GitHub user) maintains it in BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills, which has 199 GitHub stars. The repository holds 23 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on July 1, 2026.

Source: BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.