Exa Search

What it does

When your agent uses it

• The user asks for current web information
• Domain/date/category-filtered search
• People lookup via search filters
• Extracting clean page content from one

Example prompts

• “/exa-search”

Requirements

• Python 3
• A credential in EXA_API_KEY

Workflow steps

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

1. 1Run list_tools to confirm what the current server exposes.
2. 2For most tasks, start with web_search_exa.
3. 3If the user already has URLs, or search results need full content, use web_fetch_exa.
4. 4Use web_search_advanced_exa only when the task needs filters such as domains, categories, dates, highlights, summaries, or subpage crawling.
5. 5Prefer the current tools above as the main operating path.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit ae8c5db. 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 1 file in scripts/ (Python), which the agent can run.

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • python3

  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:

  • mcp.exa.ai
  • 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.

Context cost

Exa Search loads about 603 tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 80 tokens; SKILL.md has 190 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~80

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~603

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

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 OpenMinis/MinisSkills at commit ae8c5db, republished under its MIT licence (© OpenMinis). 190 words, ~603 tokens.

name

exa-search

description

Search the web, read webpages as markdown, and run filtered web retrieval with Exa MCP. Use this skill whenever the user asks for current web information, web research, domain/date/category-filtered search, company or people lookup via search filters, or extracting clean page content from one or more URLs.

# Inspect current MCP tools
python3 /var/minis/skills/exa-search/scripts/query.py list_tools

# General search
python3 /var/minis/skills/exa-search/scripts/query.py call_tool web_search_exa '{"query":"latest changes in Exa MCP docs","numResults":5}'

# Fetch page content
python3 /var/minis/skills/exa-search/scripts/query.py call_tool web_fetch_exa '{"urls":["https://exa.ai/docs/reference/exa-mcp"]}'

# Advanced search with filters
python3 /var/minis/skills/exa-search/scripts/query.py call_tool web_search_advanced_exa '{"query":"Exa MCP documentation","includeDomains":["exa.ai"],"numResults":5,"enableHighlights":true}'

© OpenMinis, 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 1 other file (scripts) in exa-search of OpenMinis/MinisSkills.

• SKILL.md
• scripts/query.py

Open the folder on GitHubat commit ae8c5db