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Agent skill

Exa Search

by K-Dense-AI in K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills

Searches scientific and technical web content with Exa and extracts page or PDF text from URLs in batches.

MITAuto-check: notesResearch & Science

Install Exa Search

skills CLI
$ npx skills add K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills --skill exa-search -a claude-code

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

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install K-Dense-AI/scientific-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/K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/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
48k
Used in
1 other repo
Token cost
~1.6k tokens
SKILL.md length
698 words
Files
5 (incl. scripts, references)
Skills in repo
153
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Searches scientific and technical web content with Exa and extracts page or PDF text from URLs in batches.

  • Works in 2 steps: category publication biases retrieval… → include-domains with a scholarly…
  • Tasks that involve Web search
  • SKILL.md covers Routing — pick the right…, Setup and Files in this skill
  • Runs Python scripts from its folder; calls uv; reaches api.exa.ai; needs EXA_API_KEY

What it does

Exa Search is an agent skill from K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills. Searches scientific and technical web content with Exa and extracts page or PDF text from URLs in batches. Supports scholarly discovery with the publication category and academic domain filters. Applies to requests to search the web, look up current research, fetch a page, or extract an article using Exa.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.6k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 6 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 Python 3.11+, exa-py=2.23.0,<3, an EXAAPIKEY, and internet access.

It sits in Research & Science, covering Web search and PDF. It works with Exa. The repository describes itself as: Turn any AI agent into an AI Scientist. The 1 Agent Skills library for science, used by 250,000+ scientists worldwide. 177 ready-to-use validated skills plus 100+ scientific… The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Tasks that involve Web search
  • Tasks that involve PDF

Example prompts

  • “Use the exa-search skill to search scientific and technical web content with Exa and extracts page or PDF text from URLs in batches”
  • “/exa-search”

Requirements

  • Python 3
  • A credential in EXA_API_KEY
  • Compatibility (from SKILL.md): Requires Python 3.11+, exa-py>=2.23.0,<3, an EXA_API_KEY, and internet access.

Workflow steps

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

  1. category publication 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 92ace75. 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

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

  • Network

    Hosts in commands or code, which the agent is likely to contact:

    • api.exa.ai

    Also links to:

    • 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 Python 3.11+, exa-py>=2.23.0,<3, an EXA_API_KEY, and internet access.

    From compatibility in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

Context cost

Exa Search loads about 1.6k tokens when it runs, and up to ~4.1k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 79 tokens; SKILL.md has 698 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~79
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.6k
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~4.1k

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:75
    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:78
    dotenv -f .env run -- uv run "$SKILL_PATH/scripts/exa_search.py" "your query"
  • NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:83
    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 K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills at commit 92ace75, republished under its MIT licence (© K-Dense-AI). 698 words, ~1,589 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/exa-search/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 4 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
exa-search
description
Searches scientific and technical web content with Exa and extracts page or PDF text from URLs in batches. Supports scholarly discovery with the publication category and academic domain filters. Applies to requests to search the web, look up current research, fetch a page, or extract an article using Exa.
compatibility
Requires Python 3.11+, exa-py>=2.23.0,<3, an EXA_API_KEY, and internet access.
license
MIT
metadata.version
1.4
metadata.last-reviewed
2026-09-30
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 publication 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 publication 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 to narrow the source pool; verify publication type and peer-review status on each source. 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.

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 "$SKILL_PATH/scripts/exa_search.py" --help

If you prefer a persistent install:

bash
uv pip install "exa-py>=2.23.0,<3"
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 "$SKILL_PATH/scripts/exa_search.py" "your query"

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

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

bash
export EXA_API_KEY="your-key"

Use --help to verify installation and CLI parsing; it does not require an API key or validate authentication. Authentication is checked only when a real query is made.

Show full SKILL.md (263 more words)Show less
Extraction limits and freshness

The extractor accepts 1–100 URLs per POST https://api.exa.ai/contents call and exports each SDK status (id, status, source). It rejects larger batches. Use --max-age-hours 0 to request fresh content, -1 for cache only, or a positive age up to 720 hours. Omission uses Exa's cache/fallback policy. published_date is estimated publication metadata, not retrieval time. The tested SDK drops per-URL error details, so report failures without inventing a cause. See URL Extraction.

Verified API and SDK scope

Reviewed the Search API, Contents API, and Exa changelog on 2026-09-30. Both routes use JSON POST requests and x-api-key authentication (the SDK sets this header). Search is POST https://api.exa.ai/search; its SDK kwargs use snake_case and are serialized to camelCase. The current scholarly category is publication; research paper is a compatibility alias in this wrapper. No offset or cursor pagination is documented for these endpoints.

Helpers are tested with exa-py==2.23.0, including mocked HTTP transport through the real SDK. Search content flags are explicit: no flags means metadata only; --highlights does not implicitly fetch text. Authenticated search/extraction examples below and in the references are illustrative; no paid live calls were made during this review.

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
  • scripts/exa_extract.py — CLI wrapper around client.get_contents

© K-Dense-AI, 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 4 other files (scripts, references) in skills/exa-search of K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills.

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

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 92ace75

Used in 1 other repository

We found 1 copy of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders, from 1 other GitHub owner. This page covers the copy in K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills, which our catalogue first saw on October 7, 2026.

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 skillK-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills48k1 repos~1.6kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Exa SearchBioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills200—~1.2kAutomated 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?

Searches scientific and technical web content with Exa and extracts page or PDF text from URLs in batches. Exa Search is an agent skill from K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills. Searches scientific and technical web content with Exa and extracts page or PDF text from URLs in batches.

When should I use Exa Search?

Exa Search fits situations like: tasks that involve Web search; tasks that involve PDF.

How do I install Exa Search in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills --skill exa-search -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/exa-search in K-Dense-AI/scientific-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 K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills --skill exa-search -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/exa-search in K-Dense-AI/scientific-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 K-Dense-AI/scientific-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 credentials named EXA_API_KEY. Our summary lists: Python 3; A credential in EXA_API_KEY. Compatibility (from SKILL.md): Requires Python 3.11+, exa-py>=2.23.0,<3, an EXA_API_KEY, and internet access..

Does Exa Search access the network?

SKILL.md names 4 domains. In commands or code: api.exa.ai; the agent is likely to contact it when it follows the instructions. 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 1.6k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 6.4k 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 2.5k 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 (BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills, 200 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?

K-Dense-AI (a GitHub organization) maintains it in K-Dense-AI/scientific-agent-skills, which has 48,215 GitHub stars. The repository holds 153 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 5, 2026.

Source: K-Dense-AI/scientific-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.